Three free interactive webinars (online sessions) will explore current workplace learning, trends in workplace learning and strategic workplace training. If you are a learning and development professional managing the training needs of your business, then this professional development opportunity is for you. This series is targeted at business and industry, and will discuss current and future workplace learning.

Wednesday 23 May – 12:30 pm start until 1:30 pm AEST

Led by Jeevan Joshi, Producer and Community Manager, and Peter Davis, Co-Editor of Learning Cafe Blog Magazine of the Learning Cafe, this webinar will:

•    discuss the way learning is designed and delivered and adapted to the needs of businesses and technology savvy learners in Australia
•    discuss workplace learning trends including informal learning, social learning and mobile learning
•    assess some of the hype surrounding e-learning in face of implementation challenges and barriers
•    discuss the new skills and capabilities required in learning professionals to be effective in this changing environment.

Monday 28 May – 12:30 pm start until 1:30 pm AEST

Led by Jeevan Joshi, Producer and Community Manager, and Peter Davis, Co-Editor of Learning Cafe Blog Magazine of the Learning Cafe, this webinar will:

• delve deeper into the challenges and opportunities to use e-learning more effectively in the current climate of budget cuts to deliver technical and compliance learning
• discuss how learning professions are critical in interpreting the capabilities required to meet business objectives and how they can contribute to the workforce planning process for the business.

Monday 4 June – 12:30 pm start until 1:30 pm AEST

Led by Julie Sloan, Founder and Director of Strategy of Workforce Planning Australia, this webinar will:

• explore the complex issue of workforce planning
• clarify that workforce development is a key outcome from workforce planning
• discuss the components of workforce development
• drill down to strategic workforce training.

Jeevan: It is my pleasure to be interviewing Helen Zwicker, the CEO of Kiama Community College. Helen, welcome to Learning Conversations.

Helen: Thank you.

Jeevan: Tell us how did you get into learning?

Helen:  I have always had a huge passion for assisting people to assist themselves in the most leveraged way possible. When I first left school, I enrolled in a Bachelor of Business -Employment Relations,  as it represented the nexus between people and business, my two favourite things ! I had the opportunity to teach Industrial relations at a really young age and that made me realize that I really enjoyed the field of learning & development and its potential to assist people in a practical way, and have headed down this path ever since through a range of private, public and community based organisations.

Jeevan: Tell us your role as the EO of Kiama Community College and the services it provided.

Helen:  My role is to ensure the success of the organization as a business-financially, legally and ethically, to protect long term viability. I must also provide leadership to ensure that our organisation fulfills its purpose and utility to our community, whilst acting within our values. There are more than 40 Community Colleges across NSW and even more across the nation. Each Community College looks quite different as it will reflect the unique Adult Learning needs of its specific community.

Our Community College provides a really broad range of services.  There are 3 main types of programs that we run- accredited vocational training across a wide range of industry areas;  social inclusion programs designed specifically for various recognized disadvantaged groups  of people to enhance social participation and pathway towards employment and finally, we have our traditional leisure, lifestyle and computer courses.  The thing that’s unique about Community College delivery is the “how” we do it- with an absolute focus on a friendly and welcoming environment for all, a sharp emphasis on developing participants’ employability and providing wrap around support to our equity clients.

Jeevan: So, I guess a related question would be, how do you identify the learning needs of a community? Is there a regular consultation process or do you survey ?

Helen: We work really closely with a lot of agencies and network groups. So, for example, we liaise regularly with Local Council representatives such as social planners and economic development officers, participate in local business chambers and social services networks. We also have good relationships with Job Services, Disability Service Providers, Aboriginal organisations and the like. We have representation on our Board of Management from many of these organisations and have partnered with quite a few of them to collaborate in the delivery of projects.

Jeevan: I know you are very passionate about teaching English language, teaching English language. Can you tell us about the challenges that you are faced with, in terms of teaching English language ?

Helen: Particularly in rural areas where there isn’t always a large representation of people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, if you don’t have good English language skills, it can cut you off, both socially and economically. So providing this service is really critical. Students also develop strong social networks with fellow student and teachers. The biggest challenge we face is to obtain adequate funding to provide a decent amount of face to face hours of tuition to students to help them move forward at a reasonable pace. It can take three or four years for them to develop their English skills at this rate. Competitive tendering for government funded delivery has driven the price to what we think is an unsustainable position for quality delivery.

We are currently focusing on how we can use technology between sessions to give students more practice opportunity. We have already used voice technologies such as Learnosity where students can access spoken material and record their responses for listening & pronunciation tasks. We are also investigating setting up an online facility where students can engage in structured conversation with other students any time online to practice their conversation skills. This will enable our students to make greater progress in a shorter time frame and within our funding reality. As soon as they are ready, we pathway our English students to a vocational qualification with language support and job readiness support. This accelerates their social and economic participation, which are inter-related.

Jeevan:  Tell us about the focus Kiama Community College has on assisting the indigenous community.

Helen: We work closely with the aboriginal communities and support organisations in the Shoalhaven. We believe this is some of our most critical community work. We have a 3 staged approach to training for our Aboriginal Community Members. The first stages of programs are designed as an introduction for people that have been disengaged from education and employment for many years.  These programs are extremely non-threatening, and  include transport to and from home, a mix of light and moderate content with the major focus being comfort in an educational context, raising of sense of self-worth, cultural connection, and articulating a dream for the way forward. The course “Subject” is always very attractive and fun. For example, one of our courses focuses on beauty and another is built around Bush Tucker.

Our most recent course included development of the Shoalhaven’s first women’s aboriginal dance group – we came to see the significance of this by seeing the emotions on the faces of the participants and the community members that watched and commented on their historic performance. The second and third stages represent a subtle scaling back of student support and a stepping up of the academic rigour of the work involved. Stage 2 is a full qualification in an aboriginal program. The past two years, we have run Cert II & III in Outdoor Recreation. Subject matter is still critical- our students love the outdoors and the delivery is culturally contextualized. Stage 3 sees a move to a scholarship-based mainstream program at Cert III or above where students determine their specific vocational direction and are much more self-supporting but still have access to the College’s range of support staff.

This approach works well. Our goal is to pathway all students to further study, employment or meaningful activity like volunteering. Its important to remember that every Aboriginal community is different and you need to be led by the local community to know what is appropriate regarding content and protocol.

Jeevan: What are the specially considerations when designing a course for indigenous people ?

Helen: I believe all successful programs for aboriginal people need to start with a mindset or attitude. Programs need to start from a place of humility, respect and empathy for the dislocation our aboriginal community members are still affected by because of the treatment of themselves and their ancestors over the past 200 years, including not so long ago. Some of our students had to seek permission to leave the mission to visit their families!

In the development of our course concepts and content, we are heavily guided by aboriginal support agencies, aboriginal trainers and our aboriginal support officer. For Engagement Courses, we infuse units of competency for employability and literacy support into it but they are not really visible. So, people aren’t necessarily, aware of their formal learning. They just get absorbed in the subject matter and then we fit those units of competency around it. When they get to the end of it, we can award students the certificate and they realize what they are capable of, which gives them confidence to move forward with study and employment. Using aboriginal  trainers is important, as is supporting them with culturally sensitive support trainers.  Trainers, the timetable and the whole organization needs to be incredibly flexible to support aboriginal learners. Our aboriginal communities are huge users of Facebook, so we use that as both a communication tool and a learning tool. I am absolutely inspired by our aboriginal students.

Jeevan: Helen, have you noticed any trends in the learning for seniors lately ?

Helen: There is a continuance of low disposable income for education which is a challenge . There is also a growing disparity in the computer know-how or knowledge of  mobile phones, smart phones know-how of our seniors. This is why we are developing a group of volunteers as seniors technology champions to assist the community on an ongoing basis in a cost-effective manner. So, you are utilizing those people with great knowledge and expertise over to share it with others. We are noticing that there is still a large number of people that have absolutely no computer skills as well and we’ve noticed that getting assistance from a family member is usually an extremely frustrating experience for all involved! We also have computer help drop in centres, so if people “hit a wall” with their technology, rather than putting it in a box in the cupboard, they can drop in on an “as-needed” basis, work through their obstacle and move forward with their IT journey.

Jeevan: The proportion of seniors is going to increase over the years and the retirement age is also being increased. Do you anticipate a lot more seniors wanting to keep up with the current skills?

Helen: Yes, with an ageing population, there will be more desire for learning. However it is very price sensitive. Our Governments need to decide whether they want to fund such learning critical for quality of life which anecdotally improves health outcomes and reduces need for other support services. It currently receives virtually no funding. In terms of computer training, hopefully, as people that are currently working retire, the skills will become actually better. So, if there is no interruption to their technology journey from work to retirement, it should be easier for them and all we need to do is keep them across new technologies as they emerge. So, in a way, that should make our job easier. But I guess, the goal is not to give them a break between when they leave the workforce to enjoy themselves with the technology.

Jeevan: Thanks for your time.

This dark cloud as always, come with a silver lining. It provides an opportunity for the learning function to explore ways to reduce costs of delivery and improve ROI and when the organisation and stakeholders are more amenable to taking risks and accept changes. Using Open Source approach is one such opportunity which should be given serious consideration. Once dismissed as the “wild west” and a fringe concept, it has matured and is increasingly being considered “legitimate” in the the corporate world. Let us first talk about the open source approach and how you probably use it without being aware of it.

So what is the open source approach ?

In production and development, open source is a philosophy that promotes free redistribution and access to an end product’s design and implementation details. At its essence, open source happens when a bunch of people get together and develop software (or other concepts and products)  which is then made available to anyone who wants to use it – free of charge. You can make changes to the software, for example to improve it or add new features, but are expected to contribute the code back to the software without any charge. Many open source projects start up with only the ones with the strongest community and value proposition surviving. The fascinating facet of open source is that people donate their time and expertise without expectation of monetary rewards.

Open source has gained critical mass in software development. Anyone using a computer connected to the internet is likely to be using open source software either directly or indirectly. There is a whole range of open source applications that you can use including browsers e.g. Firefox (link) and alternates to Microsoft Office such as OpenOffice. However even more widespread is the use of open source technology in software foundation of the internet. As an example the www.learningcafe.com.au is almost entirely open source based. The software behind the web site is based on LAMP (Lamp, Apache, MySQL and PHP) and the application it uses is WordPress, one of the most popular blogging application.

Audacity is an audio editor you can edit, fine tune and change audio recordings. Audacity is an open source free software (free software) that gives you the freedom to use it, study how it works, improve it and share it with others. Audacity has been developed by a group of volunteers have written almost 160,000 lines of software code valued at mare than $2 million (at an average salary of $55,000 per year).

The open source approach is now being applied in other fields of endeavour, such as biotechnology. The principles of open source are also being used in other fields such as beverages – OpenCola and Free Beer and laptop hardware design VIA Open Book.

Impact on learning technologies

While it has not percolated into the world of corporate learning to the same extent, open source applications has had a major impact on the world of learning. Audacity is the overall  top rated media tool in the eLearning Guild research report Media for eLearning:Top Tools. For most of us there is very little reason to choose a proprietary software over Audacity for audio. Moodle an open source learning management system has over 66,000 registered sites in 218 countries with over 58 million users. In the eLearning Guild research report on Learning Management systems (2010), Moodle was rated as the top LMS and for :

• Satisfaction with living up to promises.
• Satisfaction with time to implement.
• Satisfaction with business impact.

Regardless of whether you are a fan of open source software, you will have to agree that the numbers are impressive.

Why don’t we hear more about Open Source then ?

I don’t remember when I last made lemonade  at home. I buy my lemonade in big plastic bottles or cans from the super market. There is lots of advertising to influence my kids to think that drinking a brand of lemonade will make them cool. It is easier to buy even though I know making home-made lemonade will  be healthier, cheaper and environmentally friendly. There are lots of companies that rely on me buying lemonade from the super market to make profits which include the lemonade manufacturing, packaging, advertising, transport and the supermarket. Using Open Source is a bit like home made lemonade. Commercials vendors don’t talk about it (because there is no licensing fees) and it does not come in easy to use packaging. It takes a bit of effort and courage to explore open source for corporate learning.

However, this is changing. Open source has matured and they are now available in easier to use packaging. In my next blog I will explore where and how to use open source in corporate learning.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Are you using or planning to use open source concept and products for learning at work ?

Questions for Discussion

1.    Do you think learning would benefit from creating a brand? Intuitively the answer is “can only help” but functions such as finance, accounts and legal do not seem to rely on brands.
2.    Are there any downsides to branding e.g. consume resources, raises learner expectations and maybe a short cut to getting undeserved recognition. Or is it useful in winning the mind share of our customers (learners) in a sea of competing external and internal brands.
3.    Share your experiences of branding of learning in your organisation. Did they bear results was it sustained?
4.    What is involved in developing a learning brand? We discuss the method to develop a effective brand, budgets required and how to measure success? What branding can be achieved in small budgets and smaller organisations?

Our monthly webinar on this topic will be on May 31, Thurs 12 noon – 1 pm Sydney Time (EST). We will have a panel of experienced pros including someone from a advertising agency with expertise in internal branding will share their thoughts and experiences.

Discussion Panel

•  Peter Hall – National Technical Training & Accreditation Mgr, QBE. Peter Hall has held senior L&D leadership positions in Westpac Group, St George Bank and IAG. Peter has driven the development of learning brands in organisation such as Wetspac Group.
• Kara McLeod – Asia-Pacific Employer Branding Manager at Ernst & Young. Kara has worked with a myriad of organisations to develop both corporate and employer branding strategies, however her true passion lies in the later. As a devoted employer branding practitioner, Kara has played an integral part in developing EVP strategies for GM Holden, St.George Bank and Ernst & Young.
• Jeevan Joshi (Moderator) is the Producer of Learning Cafe and an experienced practitioner of technology-based learning and collaboration in Australia. For over 18 years, he has combined a strategic and “hands on” approach to assist organisations understand, design, deliver and improve technology enabled solutions and processes. Jeevan is responsible for developing the LearningCafe brand.

Resources

• **CorpU has an excellent white paper on branding brand learning in a corporate setting. Additional information is available in CorpU’s white paper on branding learning
• Lucy Cunningham, (2006) “Branding of learning and development: evidence from research“, Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 20 Iss: 2, pp.7 – 9 – Pay for article.
• *An experiment in 90 minutes, 250 adverts from more than 100 brands were seen in 70 different formats. The number recalled without prompting was 1.

I don’t think there’s a person working in L&D today who at some stage in their career hasn’t quietly said to themselves “if only my business customers could walk in my shoes for a while …” to understand what it’s like to be a learning professional. Think back to the last project you worked on. Project Managers demand everything by yesterday but give you little time to do your thing. End users are difficult to pin down for time and signing off requirements. Business and systems analysts are forever changing requirements and functionality leaving you in constant catch up mode, budgets – especially training budgets – just go down and down like the setting sun each day. It’s all pressure, scrambling for results and often in the end little thanks and reward. You can feel like a necessary evil on a project sometimes. “Oh yes that’s right, the training guys need some of our time too don’t they”. “Well they can have some of it, just don’t delay the project”.

Now we’re not in the same position as the writers of anti-prejudice songs in the ’60s, but some of the sentiments are not far off. Misunderstood, treated like second class citizens, often told to keep out of the way, and our opinions are rarely sought after by the project big guns. We’re just ‘training people’ after all.

Protest songs were rife in the 60s as the great social justice movement got into full swing. Songs became a rallying cry for change and equality. Points of view not normally heard were suddenly broadcast across the airwaves to cities and nations and social change started to happen. Perhaps L&D should think about penning a few classics to reach boardrooms and dare I suggest, IT Senior Management meetings?

Of course that’s unlikey to happen. But what can work succesfully is the Learning Council. A board of senior L&D and business stakeholders who meet regularly to discuss current and future learning needs in the business, learning spend, business and learning issues, resourcing, IT strategies and changes, skill and knowledge deficiencies etc. Learning Councils provide a fantastic opportunity for L&D to get their voice heard by an organisation’s decision makers. They can stop the “misunderstandings and road blocks” that so often prevent great learning happening. They also provide the sounding board for new ideas and approaches in learning. Convince the heavies about informal learning for example and watch the rest of the organisation open the doors and co-operate.

If you haven’t got a learning council,consider some of the benefits I’ve outlined here and ask yourself would the effort in setting one up help you overcome some of those organisational barriers that keep you and your L&D efforts feeling a little out in the cold? What experiences have you had?

It had been a good conversation and as time was disappearing and the conversation was quickly drawing to a close, a question was asked of me, “So Mike what’s on your PDP?”

Now PDP for anyone that doesn’t work in corporate organisations stands for Personal Development Plan and it’s effectively a place to capture your development plans and to record progress. The expectation would be to record how well ‘the development’ has supported and helped deliver against what it was there to do in the first place. It’s a working document that should reflect steps to becoming the best you can be in your current role but also your career aspirations and potential future roles. Even if it’s not called a PDP, most organisations will have an equivalent, how else could individuals track their development, identify learning opportunities and then more importantly record evidence that it’s happened?

Sounds great doesn’t it? A real ‘value-add’ document that nobody should be without?

I can imagine you’ll recoil in horror when you hear I replied, “I haven’t got a PDP at the moment, I’m getting all the development I need from Twitter and the communities I’m involved in”. Yes you heard correctly, I don’t have a PDP, a Learning Professional who doesn’t currently have a PDP or any sort of formal document to state how I intend to develop *gasp*.

I’m not saying that I’ve never had one or intend to never have one again but at this point in my career I don’t feel that it adds value for me at this time. In fact after this conversation I’ve reflected a lot around the whole approach to using PDP’s from both an organisational and personal perspective and how, in my opinion they can actually have the opposite effect and take people away from any sort of development or learning new things. I’ll be looking at the PDP and the behaviours they can drive in my next post.

In the meantime let’s get back to the (over before it began) Twitter conversation and whilst we were running out of the time I didn’t feel the conversation would have lasted long due to a lack of understanding what Twitter actually is or does. Now I’m not going to start providing detailed reasons why you should use Twitter as there are already some fantastic blogs already out there that do a much better job than I ever could, one of my favourites is 5 months in the Twitterverse…was it worth it? by @Tuppymagic

Instead, I’m going to use a quotation and an analogy to bring to life what Twitter has provided me in terms of my own professional and personal development and ability to connect with people and access information.

The quotation is by Oliver Wendell Holmes and goes like this

“A mind stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimension”

I feel like I’ve had my and continue to have my head stretched through the information I have access to via Twitter and through the connections I’ve made building my own personal learning network.

The analogy I’d like to use to bring it to life is using the film Limitless.

In the film Bradley Cooper is a down and out writer with a severe case of writers block. Without spoiling the film for anyone who’s not watched it, the film revolves around a pill that provides a period of enlightenment and increases the brains activity to be able to recall anything you’ve ever seen and needless to say, IQ scores disappear off the scale. I like the films tagline, “Everything is possible when you open your mind”. The way the film captures the first time the pill has its’ affect from the eyes of Bradley Cooper is fantastic; the screen wakes up as if moving from standard resolution to high definition, colours become brighter, sound becomes sharper and it’s like the whole film has come out of its’ chrysalis and become a beautiful butterfly.

I realise I’m no butterfly and my IQ has not disappeared off the scale but Twitter has been my pill, my moment of enlightenment and increased brain activity. It has provided the stimulation and connections for me to grow and develop my understanding of learning and more importantly organisational learning. Even as recently as last week, it has allowed me to gain access to events such as LnDConnect Unconference #ldcu and to meet the LnDConnnect Community which I hope to contribute to over the coming months.

It’s helped me develop a greater insight in to HR, social media and marketing, in to technology and how it is being used to support & deliver learning in other organisations. I’ve been lucky enough to have experienced first-hand how online communities can help build and develop relationships and spread knowledge, opinions and ideas. I’ve had my mind stretched and I’m eager for more, I feel like I’m Jonny 5 from ShortCircuit “Input, Input, need Input”…..

My development has come from being exposed to new things and ways of thinking, to then contextualising them and bringing them back in to my workplace to try them and have conversations about them. To attempt new things and use different approaches AND to learn from them is crucial to personal as well as organisational development. After all if you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

This IS my development, it’s the work that I do and the more conversations I can have to build and share these ideas and reflect on them the better. My quarterly review and the conversation was in my eyes more important than any document I could produce. Rather than ask to see my PDP at the end of the conversation this conversation should BE my development and recognised as such. A PDP isn’t some token gesture produced at review time it should be living and breathing, your development shouldn’t sit on a document it should be brought to life in the work you do and in the conversations you have with your colleagues.

I want to develop the concept around the rights and wrongs of PDP’s in the next post but in the meantime let me ask you;

• Have you found your pill yet? If so what was it and why?
• Does your organisation use PDP’s or equivalents?
• Do you agree or disagree with the value of a PDP?
• Do you have a PDP? If so would you share what is on it?

Look forward to hearing from you

Images

Hexus

Your Dictionary

]]> http://www.learningcafe.com.au/2012/04/do-you-have-a-personal-development-plan/feed/ 6 http://www.learningcafe.com.au/2012/04/gartners-top-predictions-for-2012-and-its-impact-on-learning/ http://www.learningcafe.com.au/2012/04/gartners-top-predictions-for-2012-and-its-impact-on-learning/#comments Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:22:59 +0000 Jeevan Joshi http://www.learningcafe.com.au/?p=1452 The highly respected information technology research and advisory company Gartner has made the top 10 enterprise technology predictions for 2012. You can access the presentation and webinar here   This blog posting attempts to translate these trends into how it will impact the learning in organisations. This impact assessment is of relevance for anyone and any organisation which delivers learning through technology enabled channels e.g e-Learning, video, mobile learning etc.

The crux of the article is that IT budgets and responsibilities are moving out of the control of IT departments and into the hands of others, thanks to trends such as consumerization and cloud computing which is making centralised controlled of IT difficult. Users are taking more control of the devices they will use, business managers are taking more control of the budgets IT organizations.   IT organization will need to co-ordinate those who have the money, those who deliver the services, those who secure the data, and those consumers who demand to set their own pace for use of IT. This decentralisation of control provides the learning function with opportunities to be a bit more responsive to e-learner needs which in the past may have been hampered by the rigid operational frameworks imposed by IT.

In this blog I have tried to assess the impact of these predictions on learning at three different levels and is depicted in the table below

1. Impact at the enterprise level i.e how it will impact learning strategy and architecture.
2. Impact on the learning design level  ie how the design and subsequently the delivery of learning will be impacted.
3. Impact on Learners.

In Australia we have an additional impact of the NBN broadband which is likely to enable and accelerate these trend. My previous blog Land of Plenty Broadband – Threat Or Opportunity for the Learning Function ?
covers the impact of the learning function and predicts that the way we design learning will become more complex and sophisticated.

High

By 2015, mobile application development (AD) projects targeting smartphones and tablets will outnumber native PC projects by a ratio of 4-to-1

Impact analysis – What this prediction is saying is that by 2015 the the usage of mobile devices will substantial outpace PC use. This has major implications in the way we design and deliver learning. In its report on mLearning, eLearning guild sees an increase in percentage of companies that plan to do more mLearning from 38.5% in 2007 to 51% in 2011. It predicts that mLearning via smartphones and tablets will make performance support or just in time learning easier.

This prediction is a signal to learning to build the capabilities and architecture for delivering learning via smartphones and tablets. Considering that we have only recently become proficient in PC based learning. it marks the beginning of another step learning journey.

Medium

In 2013, the investment bubble will burst for consumer social networks, and for enterprise social software companies in 2014.

Impact analysis – We have to be a bit careful in interpreting this prediction. What it is not saying is that social networking will become less popular but the investments in social network technology will  decrease  i.e there is a oversupply of products and vendors in this space which will consolidate. This prediction validates to some extent my own bearish view on the success of employee social networking – “4 reasons why employee social learning will fail at work“.

By 2015, 35% of enterprise IT expenditures for most organizations will be managed outside the IT department’s budget.

Impact analysis – This prediction is about the business taking more control of the IT expenditure and the results its delivers. This trend is natural as the business gets a better understanding of technology the balance of power will shift back to them. For learning professionals this means that business will have more of a say in how the budget for e-learning will be spent.

By 2015, the prices for 80% of cloud services will include a global energy surcharge.

Through 2015, more than 85% of Fortune 500 organizations will fail to effectively exploit big data for competitive advantage.

Impact analysis – Learning will need to make sure that its data is included in the enterprise data warehouse and it is integrated with other important business data. From a performance support point of view it will to some extent allow the business to correlate learning data to business results.

Low

Through 2016, the financial impact of cybercrime will grow 10% per year, due to the continuing discovery of new vulnerabilities.

By 2015, low-cost cloud services will cannibalize up to 15% of top outsourcing players’ revenue.

By 2016, at least 50% of enterprise email users will rely primarily on a browser, tablet or mobile client, instead of a desktop client.

By 2016, 40% of enterprises will make proof of independent security testing a precondition for using any type of cloud service.

The low impact predictions is unlikely to directly impact learning but must be on your radar.

What are your views on the prediction and my own analysis on learning. Your comments are most welcome.

Among the stakeholders considered was the “C-Level & Leadership”. This got me thinking, do the C-suite and lower rung managers expect different things from L&D?

There’s no shortage of advice out there telling us to learn the language of finance, because that’s what the CEO speaks. And that makes sense to me. While some of my peers shudder at the term ROI, for example, I consider it perfectly reasonable for the one footing the bill to demand something in return.

Show me the money.

But I also dare to suggest that the managers who occupy the lower levels of the organisational chart don’t give a flying fox about all that. Of course they “care” about revenue, costs and savings – and they would vigorously say so if asked! – but it’s not what motivates them day to day. What they really care about is their team’s performance stats.

I’m referring to metrics such as:

• Number of widgets produced per hour
• Number of defects per thousand opportunities
• Number of policy renewals
• Number of new write-ups

In other words, whatever is on their dashboard. That’s what they are ultimately accountable for, so that’s what immediately concerns them.

The business savvy L&D consultant understands this dynamic and uses it to his or her advantage. He or she appreciates the difference between what the client says they want, and what they really need. He or she realises the client isn’t invested in the training activity, but rather in the outcome. He or she doesn’t start with the solution (“How about a team-building workshop?”), but rather with the performance variable (“I see your conversion rate has fallen short of the target over the last 3 months”).

He or she knows that the numbers that really matter don’t necessarily have dollar signs in front of them.

_______________

William C Norris was the founder and Chairman of Control Data Corporation.  He passed away 21 August 2006 at a nursing home  in Bloomington, Minn. USA.  He had Parkinson’s disease and was 95 years of age.

Control Data Corporation was formed in 1957.  After the corporation built the first commercial super-computer (CDC 6600) in 1964 which was 10 times faster than anything on the market, Norris built Control Data into the fourth-largest data processing business in the world.  It was worth $5 billion in 1984.  One of the important and legendary computer engineers who worked with Norris was Seymour Cray.

William Norris was touched by the plight of the socially disadvantaged people of America and how education could improve their situation.  He demonstrated industry leadership in vastly improving employment opportunities and working conditions for people within his own company, and he influenced others to follow.  It was in 1959 that he became intrigued by the work being undertaken by Dr Donald Bitzer at the University if Illinios to develop a means to use a computer for instructional purposes.  This was the birth of the PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) system.  Norris negotiated a funding arrangement with the University signalling one of the most fruitful collaborative efforts in academic-corporate relationships.  Certainly Norris was interested in the business opportunities for Control Data but underpinning that was his belief that the PLATO system had the potential to deal with improving the quality of public education.

Part of this was the ability of the PLATO system’s communication features which provided an ability for remotely located teachers and students to communicate and discuss issues by direct wired networks!  Yes, this was in 1973!  PLATO Notes was among the world’s first online message boards, and years later became the direct progenitor of the well known early email system Lotus Notes.

Norris set up a network of Control Data Institutes (CDIs) to address vocational education and by 1983 CDIs were in 40 USA cities and had expanded into England, France, Germany, Canada and Australia.  But it was Norris’ vision to assist the disadvantaged, including those with physical disabilities, that saw PLATO used for education and training in developing countries.  Two settings were chosen for this purpose: South Africa and Jamaica.  In Johannesburg, South Africa PLATO was used for industrial training in and The Univeristy of Western Cape used PLATO for remedial education to reduce the dropout rate.  In 1983 the unemployment rate in Jamacia was around 30% with 350,000 young people between 15 and 21 functionaly illiterate.  Norris ensured the focus was on teacher training, the teaching of basic skills and vocational education.

Norris wrote a book titled “New Frontiers for Business Leadership” (details below) and I have utilised some of the content in developing this post.  It sits with a few others like it on my bookshelf – an armslength away – as I find it an inspiring read and I often reach for it to thumb through one of the Chapters – Education, Employment, Small Business, Urban Revitalisation, Rural Revitalisation and Heath Care and a very insighful chapter Worker Performance and Productivity.  All these written with obvious care and concern for people, for equality, community education and social harmony.  It opens good wholesome reasons for computer generated learning and, unlike many new technologies these days which are essentially solutions looking for application, Norris highlighted and was passionate about a need and he visioned a solution.

Noris was not just an astute businessman and cpmputer scientist in the cut and thrust developing computer industry.  Leadership, innovation, compassion for people and social harmony were his real values.  Here is what he said almost 30 years ago “Society can no longer be served by traditional educational methods; they are simply too costly and too limited.  Ultimately the computer will . . . have the capacity to reach every individual in the world and provide better access to knowledge that will both enrich their personal lives and give them more control over their destinies.  The stage has been set; the scenario is no idle dream” (Norris, W.C., New Frontiers for Business Leadership, Dorn Books, Minneapolis, 1983, p.87)

It doesn’t do any harm, amongst our enthusiasm for learning and technology, to be grateful for men like William C Norris.  He was not an educator by qualification, but he was by heart.

A panel  will explore this topic. Join this professional development webinar from the comfort of your desk.

•   Date : 26 April, Thursday
•   Time : 12 noon – 1 pm, EST / Sydney Time
•   Register at http://bit.ly/lcafeapril12

Panel of experts will include

• IT Stakeholder – Derek Welsh-  Group IT Services Manager – Angus Knight Group
• Lindsay Springall – Westpac Learning
• Moderator – Jeevan Joshi – Producer, Learning Cafe