The Training Department (aka the L&D dept) has traditionally focused on designing, developing, delivering and managing instruction – in the form of courses, workshops, e-learning and other training events.  In  fact “a course” in some form or other has now become  the de facto solution to any performance problem in an organisation – despite the fact that many of my Internet Time Alliance colleagues (and others) have spoken about its inadequacies in today’s world, and that courses have little impact on performance. Read more →

Article written for e-Learning Age magazine, November 2011

With the emergence of new social media tools, the word “Social” is being prefixed to old words to form new terms like “Social Business” and “Social Media Marketing”, and of course we now see the increasing use of the term “Social Learning”. Read more →

I’ve written a few postings recently (notably Social Learning doesn’t mean what you think it does) where I have tried to show how the fundamental changes in how businesses are operating, require a fundamental change in how the L&D function needs to view workplace learning.  I suggested this means a move from a “Command and Control” approach to an “Encourage and Engage” approach to Workplace Learning. Read more →

This post was prompted by a webinar I gave on behalf of Citrix/GoToWebinar on 6^th July 2011 and originally posted as a guest post on the Learning Pool blog. I’ve made a few changes to it here. Read more →

“Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy“ - Article #7 of The Cluetrain Manifesto, 1999.

The Net, especially working and learning in networks, subverts many of the hierarchies we have developed over hundreds of years. Formal education is one example, as shown in this excellent article by Cathy Davidson: Read more →

I was recently involved in a discussion about 21st Century learning skills in one of the LinkedIn Groups. It got me thinking about a piece I’d written for TrainingZone a few months ago titled ‘What does your ideal L&D team look like in 2010?’ I’ve posted that article here, with some changes and updates. Read more →

The amount of time, effort and money wasted on formal ILT training prior to rollout or upgrade of enterprise platforms (particularly ERM and CRM) and other new software systems is really quite amazing. Read more →

Two weeks ago I ran a webinar under this title for Citrix.

At the start I posed the question “when you think about one great learning experience you’ve had, can you remember where it occurred? Was it in a classroom or workshop, or did it occur while you were completing the task?” Read more →

Very few of us would argue with the proposition that a lot of organisational learning and development activity is sub-optimal to the extent that it provides little value to participants and their organisations. Read more →