Training 2007

Training 2007

Back to the Mouse Kingdom for another conference. Deja vu. I’d swear I was at a training event at the Coronado Resort in Disney World with a bunch of guys changing the tires of a NASCAR racer in record time less than six months ago. This time, the tire guys were inside. Click. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Click. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Click. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

M.C. Escher was here.

Tom Stewart

Tom Stewart, editor of Harvard Business Review, presented his view of how knowledge businesses create value. Tom is a fantastic thinker; he invented the term intellectual capital when he was a reporter at Fortune. Early on, he recognized the importance of intangible assets. Tom and I talked at length when I was writing my book, and he shaped my concept of informal learning. Unfortunately, I had heard Tom give this same talk before, right down to the line that email appears on his Blackberry as if sneaked in by some evil Santa.

Tom and I had a brief chat after his talk. When I said that one thing required for a knowledge organization to work is trusting the workers, Tom smirked and said, “Well, that will never happen. Ha!” It’s a joke, folks. Or maybe not.

If you’ve never been here, perhaps I should mention that Florida is unreal.

Guide-on-the-side

I’d volunteered as a “guide-by-the-side” on the topic of informal learning, and our group met several times. Guides receive no instructions about what they are supposed to accomplish. With some up-front planning, interleaving small group reflection sessions with presentations would help people form networks, encourage participants to reflect on and critique lessons learned, and learn from the power of “group mind.”

Our first session late Sunday afternoon drew but six people. This may have been a blessing in disguise. Participants included a bank consultant, a technical learning designer from Disney, an instructional designer from H & R Block, an former engineer who oversees the finance training for 700 employees, the learning leader for an extensive campus ministry, and an instructional designer from a large insurance company. We talked of communities of practice, mixing informal and formal, and what worked in our shops. We finished up by suggesting personal strategies to get the most out of the conference.

Our second meeting took place the next day at lunch. Down the way in the same room, the NASCAR folks were showing off their tire-changing skills. Talking over the din of a power wrench is not easy.

Looking at the guide-on-the-side program from an informal perspective, perhaps renaming them “learning groups,” giving every attendee an initial group assignment, and encouraging the group to process what they’re learning could make the entire conference experience more penetrating. This “group-in-the-middle” concept might consume half of the time during a conference. And double its take-home value.

Informality

My session on informal learning nearly filled the room. After introducing the topic and telling the story of how National Semiconductor used participatory graphics, Cisco’s Emily Chung described her firm’s informal approaches to sales training. I’d invited Emily to participate only three hours earlier. [DISCLOSURE: Cisco is an Internet Time client.] In closing, IBM’s Tony O’Driscoll shared a few words on using virtual worlds to support learning; he’s convinced this is the way of the future. Clark Quinn linked learning games to informal learning.

When I’ve been invited to speak at conferences in the past, I presumed that the format would just be me talking. One way to think of informal learning is that it’s learning without boundaries. From now on, I’ll focus more on providing an optimal experience for the participants. This could be additional speakers, a World Cafe, or a simulation. Whatever works best. Probably it will be a lot more than Jay at the front of the room.

Other news

My old pal Bryan Chapman (you’ve seen him in his referee shirt) at numerous “shoot-out” events) has left Brandon Hall and is now running his own show. Bryan and I met ages ago, right after he developed a tool called Designer’s Edge for Allen Interactions. Designer’s Edge was awesome: the first shell for creating learning programs from analysis through evaluation.

Bjorn and the gang from Enspire

GeoLearning hosted a lively cocktail party, probably the most effective learning experience of the event. I whipped out my camera to record a couple of Nanocasts. First, GeoLearning’s Frank Russell talked about their latest hosted learning environment. Bjorn Brillhardt, founder of simulation maker Enspire was speculating on the future of virtural worlds in learning when the conversation was hi-jacked by Roger McGuinn fans urging us to head over to the free concert. I will post the Nanocasts on The Informal Learning site tomorrow.

Roger McGuinn was simply great. He played a dozen or more of The Byrds’ greatest hits. We boomers were ecstatic.

Some guy setting up for Roger

Later in the evening I had an opportunity to talk with Training’s new owners: Nielsen. These guys are BIG. Joyceann Cooney-Garippa now runs Training magazine and the Training events. These folks have plans to make Training more relevant, and they have the resources to pull it off. Joyceann’s boss, Bill Cooke, has an insider view of our industry, having marketed and delivered training as a solo consultant for three years. Phil Jones, the last remaining honcho from the early days, when Lakewood Publications ran Training and Presentations, plans to retire after showing Nielsen the ropes.

Kathy Sierra

I encouraged everyone I spoke with to attend Kathy Sierra’s presentation on creating passionate learners. Kathy’s message is so important yet so easy to overlook. To create passionate learners, you need to begin with the question, “What can we help our users kick butt at?”

Cognitive Seduction is so refreshing. It’s direct. It tells you what to shoot for. It’s such a different approach than ISD, Bloom, Gagne, Tom Gilbert, and their cohorts.

Kathy’s room set-up was bizarre. As a result of quickly slicing a large auditorium into small chunks with sliding walls, Kathy ended up so far from the audience that I could not make out her expressoins, even from the front row.

How was the conference?

I had a swell time but that doesn’t mean very much for you. I’ve attended training conferences off and on for a quarter century. (Scary thought, that.) At first, I would attend every session I could jam into my schedule. As I burned out on some subjects, I became more selective. When asked if a conference was good, my response reflected how I felt about the content. Then, as a vendor, a conference was good if I ended up with fistfuls of business cards from likely prospects. Later on, I was one of the first people to blog conferences; a great conference was one that was newsworthy and let me take interesting photographs. As a speaker, my narrow take on things is how many peole I can turn on to my ideas. As an author and, yes, an authority, I rarely go to sessions. I spend most of my time in short conversations and catching up with friends.

The quality of a conference is in the mind of the beholder. ASTD TechKnowledge is great for novices; Training serves a slightly more mature crowd. The Guild is ideal for practitioners. Elliott Masie attracts a mixed bag, but by-and-large, Learning draws regulars. That said, half his audience raised hands when asked if this was their first time. Whether a conference is good or bad depends on who you are.

Informal learning tech at the Coronado