Work smarter, not harder.

Have you heard that?  I did, in my first job out of college; my boss said it, but it wasn’t clear what it meant.  What does ‘work smarter’ mean?  I already thought I was working smarter.  Well, as I’ve learned (in conjunction with my ITA colleagues), it means a number of things that organizations can, and should, do. Read more →

This is a copy of an article I’ve written for a Wiley newsletter to promote my mlearning book. 

The indicators are clear: the world is going mobile.  Mobile subscriptions in the developed world are flattening out, not from lack of interest, but from saturation.  People are accessing the internet more from mobile devices than desktops, and some people only access the internet via mobile!  And when a small company like Google says that they’re designing for mobile first and the desktop is an afterthought, it is safe to say mobile is on the move. Read more →

The ubiquity of powerful mobile devices able to download applications that enable unique capabilities, has led David Pogue to coin them “app phones“.  Similarly, the expression “there’s an app for that” has been part of widespread marketing campaign.  However, it turns out that apps are more than just on phones.  Facebook has apps, as I just heard about BranchOut as a job hosting extension of the popular social network (I’m preparing for my talk at the Australasian Talent Conference).  Of course, there are other apps I don’t get involved in, such as all the quizzes, because I’m worried about the data they share, but there’s a meta-point here. Read more →

Odds are your organization is failing your learners in a variety of predictable but inexcusable ways.

I continue to get asked about social learning metrics.  Until we get around to a whitepaper or something on metrics, here’re some thoughts:

Frankly, the problem with Kirkpatrick (sort of like with LMS’ and ADDIE, *drink*) is not in the concept, but in the execution.  As he would say, stopping at level 1 or 2 is worthless.  You need to start with Level 4, and work back.  This is true whether you’re talking about formal learning, informal learning, or whatever. Then, I’m not feeling like you have to be anal about levels 1-3, it’s level 4 that matters, but there’s plausibility that making the link makes your case stronger.  And I also like what I heard added at a client meeting: level 0, are they even taking the course/accessing the system?  But I digress… Read more →

This is the extended abstract for the presentation I’m leaving today to give in Berlin at Online Educa on mobile learning on Dec 2.

Increasingly, workers are mobile.  When we look not only at field-deployed individuals, but also those who occasionally must travel to meetings, make site-visits, are away at conferences and workshops, or even are commuting, the number of mobile workers can be considered from half to most of the workforce. When we consider how many have a mobile device of some sort, and that these devices are increasingly powerful, we have a big opportunity to have a business impact. Read more →

My problem with the formal models of instructional design (e.g. ADDIE for process), is that most are based upon a flawed premise.  The premise is that the world is predictable and understandable, so that we can capture the ‘right’ behavior and train it.  Which, I think, is a naive assumption, at least in this day and age. Read more →

The opportunity we now have is to use technology to move from an event-based learning model that we know to be ineffective, to a more distributed and contextualized environment that elegantly spans the continuum from formal learning to performance support. And this is not science fiction – we have the tools we need now. Even if we didn’t, we should be preparing our thinking for this capability. Read more →

It’s not news that we’re experiencing increasing change. The quantity of information available is growing astronomically, new offerings are increasingly quick to be copied, businesses are under pressure to do more with less, and the internet is a disruptive force, threatening all manner of content industries. Read more →