Entries Tagged 'The Learning Business' ↓

Last night I dreamt that I was at checking in at some out-of-the-way international airport. I was at a table covered with a pile of receipts, tickets, credit cards, itineraries, printouts, business cards, and notes. I had lost my shoulder bag, so I stuffed everything into a cardboard box. I checked the box as luggage, got my boarding pass, and realized I’d left my ID was in the box. Thank heavens I woke up before I had to go through Security.

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On another matter, Web 2.2 closed with a drawing. My business card came out of the fishbowl, and I am now the owner of a ViewSonic Pocket PC V37. Now I need to figure out what to do with it.

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And another… I’ve been touting the concept that most traditional training focuses on novices, to the neglect of the high-producing people with experience. That’s an over-simplification because a learner may be expert at a dozen things but a novice in several others.

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A blessing in disguise: My laptop had 4% battery left when I arrived at Orlando airport to come home on Wednesday. No reason to lug it around. It went into my suitcase and rode home in the belly of the plane. Consequently, instead of writing a description of the last two days on the way back, I read a few more chapters of From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism, inadvertantly giving myself more time for reflection.

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Learning 2006 Monday morning. Learning 2006 has about 60 sponsors. Along the back wall, each sponsor has a 3′ wide stand which holds their literature. Every vendor has a cell phone, should you want to connect with them. And the CD in the portfolio has 386 pp. of vendor brochures and white papers.

Sleep disruption. It’s a threat to productivity. See the article in HBR. (Or Marcia’s latest article on the Fast Company site.)

Dave Hopla, one of the top coaches on shooting baskets from the foul line, is going to tell us a bit about muscle memory. “How are we doing today?” “Good.” Dave says good is not good enough. You gotta be great. Try to swish every shot.

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Learning 2006

This is a live blog post from Learning 2006. It’s Sunday evening. 1800 people fill the ballroom at the Coronado Springs resort.

Elliott opened with a 10-year old playing Mozart’s Goldberg Variations. He asked us to contemplate what it takes to acquire these skills. Practice, love, feedback, and a sense of opportunity and joy.

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Tomorrow these tables will be filled with networked laptops. The wall along the right will display the Graphic Learning Gallery. Toward the end of the day, 1,800 people will file into the Coronado main ballroom to hear Elliott kick off Learning 2006.

Some of us will be blogging. Others will snap photographs. If you’ve creating stuff during the event, please tag them L2006. That will make it easy to see what’s happening with Del.icio.us and Flickr.

The morning email contained this message from Norm Kamikow, editor-in-chief at MediaTec Publishing:

I want to inform you of our decision to make a change at the editorial director position.  Effective November 1, Diane Landsman has been elevated to the position of editorial director replacing Tim Sosbe who has left the company.

Effective immediately, Diane will lead content development for our three magazines – Chief Learning Officer magazine, Talent Management magazine (formerly Workforce Performance Solutions) and Certification Magazine – as well as their associated e-media, resources and events.

The MASIE Center surveyed thousands of learning colleagues about their hopes for the field. Here is their wish list:

• CEO’s and Boards will begin or continue to understand the value of meaningful development for themselves and their teams.
• Learning professionals would be more honest with ourselves.
• That we stop looking for “the answer”. There is no one silver bullet.
• Learning Research needs to be more effective and discussed.
• After we “build” it, they really do “come” Learning is accessed by those that need it.
• We can truly measure the ROI or Impact of learning. Or, create a better way of talking about the effectiveness of our work.
• We understand the difference between training and learning.
• The “cool” learning technology actually works and is valued by the entire workforce.
• LMS systems that are engines for performance and profitability rather than tracking system.
• Every learner is self-directed, understanding that they have to develop constantly if they are to keep up; understanding that learning is *their* responsibility, not their manager’s or the HR department’s, or anyone else’s. And the flipside of that dream, of course, is that we are providing them with engaging, on-demand content as and when and how they need it.

Wouldn’t adopting a mission of improving organizational performance in lieu of training/learning help fulfill the hopes I’ve marked with italics?

Saratoga Springs is a lovely old town by any measure.

I’m going to continue my tour of The Masie Center after the fold.

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Saratoga Springs is dressed in Fall colors. It’s a beautiful town, one of those rare spots that has not been defiled by McDonald’s, Wal*Mart, and strip malls.

Like Hot Springs, Arkansas, or Baden Baden, Germany, this is a town founded on its water. Cathy and Elliott live in a 1832 Greek Revival mansion that once belonged to the town’s chief water entrepreneur. It looks out on Congress Park, which is filled with fountains for tasting the waters.

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Associated Press, Washington

“For all the differences between the sexes, here’s one that might stir up debate in the teacher’s lounge: Boys learn more from men and girls learn more from women. That’s the upshot of a provocative study by Thomas Dee, an associate professor of economics at Swarthmore College and visiting scholar at Stanford University.”

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