Learn and Lead: The Big Question

Showing posts with label The Big Question. Show all posts

What I Learned in 2008

Labels: Learning, The Big Question 1 comments

Learning Circuits asks readers to reflect on the year gone by and share what they learned in 2008.

I learned to shed my inhibition and fear of the online world (identify theft, spam, and most importantly, what will others think) and create a real digital presence on the web.

I learned how to make friends using the social web, through channels like blogs and social networking sites (Facebook and LinkedIn).

I learned to blog and interact with fellow bloggers.

I learned that it is not easy to get participation in online communities (not sure why I was surprised, having tried it in different avatars in the past).

I learned that it is great feeling when people I meet for the first time tell me that they read my blog.

I learned to shed my inhibitions to attend conferences on blogging and welcome opportunities to actually speak in conferences. I learned to blog about what I hear in conferences.

I learned how easy it is get a domain name and set up a website.

I learned to reflect and share my learning through my blog.

I learned about social and viral marketing and managed to generate a better response this year for my unofficial salary survey.

I learned from my fellow blogger how to gracefully agree to disagree.

Finally I learned that there is so much more to learn, and the more I learn the more I realize how little I know.

Here's a 'Wordle' of titles for 2008 blog posts.

Network Feedback

Labels: Blogging, Facebook, Learning, LinkedIn, Social Networking, The Big Question 4 comments

This month’s Learning Circuits Big Question asks where is the best place to ask if you need input from people, what works and doesn’t work, what did you consider using, what was the outcome, ...

Continuing with my experiences with social networking, I have tried to use blogging to connect with people and get answers. However I haven’t been very successful in generating a dialog through my blogs. Perhaps my blog has very small readership, or perhaps people aren’t comfortable commenting.

As part of my journey in social networking I also started two communities – on Facebook and LinkedIn. Somehow it seemed harder to get a dialog on Facebook community but LinkedIn community got the dialog going quicker initially.

I recently sought inputs on a presentation I had to make. I posed the question on my LinkedIn community and didn’t get any response. I also sent a message to my Facebook community inbox instead of posting it to the group site. I got most response using this method. It makes me wonder if email is still the best form of social networking.

'To-Learn' List

Labels: Lists, The Big Question 0 comments

This month’s Learning Circuit’s Big question is on To-Learn Lists. It seems to be a very interesting concept. Some years ago we went through Personal Effectiveness Program (PEP) in our organization. This was loosely based on Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. As part of this program we were expected to create life’s goals in various areas of life. To me, the To-Learn lists are similar, perhaps not sounding as lofty as life’s goals but equally important. And if we can articulate this and track our progress on this list, it will force us to spend time on what we really want to learn.

Do I have a To-Learn list? Well no, but here’s my first list of things I want to learn.

Learn to play the tabla. Have been wanting to for a very long time now!
Learn to run a Rs. 100 crore company. I see my bosses doing much more with aplomb ease.
Learn PHP !!! Actually not really ‘learn’ but knowing it will really help ever since I started messing around with Wordpress and other tools.
Learn to dance such that my daughter doesn’t roll on the floor laughing.

There are few other things on the list but they seem to overlap with things I want to do in life.

Other questions asked in the Big Question:

How does a to-learn list impact something like a Learning Management System in a Workplace or Educational setting?
What skills, practices, behaviors do modern knowledge workers need around to-learn lists?

I would suggest that we leave LMSs alone for now. There are enough other things to be managed with all the informal learning and Web 2.0 mumbo-jumbo. Let’s not add To-Learn Lists on to LMSs. And do knowledge workers need to have any skills, practices around this? I don’t think what knowledge workers need would be any different from what anyone else would need. This is a ‘life-skill’ that we all need irrespective of our profession, to become a better person, a better human being.

What would I like to do better as a Learning Professional?

Labels: The Big Question 0 comments

In response to the Learning Circuit's April Big Question, What would you like to do better as a Learning Professional, here's my list.

As a learning professional, I would like to see myself making a greater connect between learning and business needs, and between training and on the job productivity.

In my new role, I would like to build a better learning product that will really prepare fresh graduate for the IT industry and enable them to get a job. This will include not just technical skills, but communication skills and life skills.

I would also like to succeed in my collaborative learning environment experiment and in moving towards a culture of learning.

eLearning and Content Development Trends for 2008

Labels: Blended learning, Content Development, eLearning, Rapid development, Synchronous learning, The Big Question, Training, Trends, Virtual environments, Web 2.0 7 comments

Learning Circuit’s January Big Question is about predicting trends for the year 2008. Here’s my take on what we can expect in the coming year.

Web 2.0 in Learning
Web 2.0 will be the killer buzzword for the year 2008. Everyone will want to use the technology for learning and training. Bersin report for 2008 talks about it, Brandon Hall has announced new categories of awards, and most bloggers are talking about it. I believe 2008 will continue to be the year of discovery and experimentation with Web 2.0. Web 2.0 techniques will not yet be used in formal training, but each company will have an initiative around it.

In my view, corporate intranets and extranets have been around for years and have been attempting to do what Web 2.0 is expected to do. Are Web 2.0 techniques different from corporate intranets? Will employees feel more compelled to use these as compared to corporate intranets? Will companies provide the Internet freedom culture on their corporate Web 2.0 environments? Will companies adopt open sites like Facebook, YouTube, SlideShare for allowing employees to post and share corporate content on the Internet? Or will these sites provide secure environments (inside firewalls or hosted) to the corporate world? Do we have a new business model here? Or will Web 2.0’s usage be limited to building communities by product companies?

Training managers will still be required to measure success in training days/hours per person, which will make Web 2.0 in formal training and learning environment extremely difficult to adapt for formal training. What is required is another path breaking research that can provide some return on investment figures of using Web 2.0 in learning and training. I expect more research towards this in year 2008 rather than training managers embracing Web 2.0 as a mode of formal learning.

Virtual Environments
Virtual environments will find increasing use in building communities and new product launches by technology customers. Will Second Life be used for actual training in the corporate world? I don’t believe 2008 will be the year for mass adoption of Second Life in training. There will be questions of security, access through corporate networks, and of course tracking progress in Second Life. However asynchronous virtual environments will find their way in training in a limited way. Most of these will be showcase training module as opposed to bulk of training being developed as virtual environment. There will be a conflict between rapid development and real-life imitating virtual environment training. I am also very impressed with The 3Di-Web Singularity is Near by Tony O’Driscoll. This will certainly change the way learning happens. I am not sure about its adoption in formal “training” in the next year or two.

Form Factors
The 2000-01 downturn saw a trend towards formalizing elearning as a mode of learning. There were mechanisms to justify the return on investment on elearning. As the economy improved, we moved to blended learning. Even as elearning increased, most industry reports still indicated that instructor led training led as the preferred mode of learning. In the last few years, we as a training and content development organization have seen an increase in projects developing instructor led training material. Now with the US economy showing signs of slowing down (no one actually conclusively knows which way the US economy will actually go but most reports are tilting towards “caution”, “slowing down”, “start of recession” etc.), my guess is that we will once again see an increase of elearning development.

What constitutes elearning has also changed. Most instructor led training now a days has an element of ‘e’ in them, whether it is in the form of demos or virtual images. In 2008, we should start to dump the ‘e’ and start classifying training as synchronous training and asynchronous training.

The training in 2008 will tend towards online synchronous training. We will see more of “VILT”, “online sessions”, “online conferencing” etc. The technology now has matured; online conferencing tools are easily available without significant investment option to be made by organizations.

Rapid Development and Development Models
Rapid elearning will continue to be a buzz word. PowerPoint will reclaim its position as a rapid elearning development tool. Sites like SlideShare will help PowerPoint in this endeavor.

Of course, being the buzzword, along with “collaborative development”, “self organizing groups”, “user generated content”, training managers will have harder time convincing management to spend training dollars in an already weakening economy. Most management will want to know what value instructional designers add when all content is driven by subject matter experts in user generated content mode. Instructional Designers will be required to acquire new skills for content development and interacting with SME and reinvent themselves. The development models will change to factor in collaborative development and rapid development needs.

Summary
In summary, we will see a lot more talk about Web 2.0 in learning and training. However 2008 may not be the year of adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in "formal training". Rapid development will be key and instructional designers will need to reinvent themselves and development models will evolve.

Would love to hear what you are seeing as trends within your companies or you’re your customers are implementing. Share your practical experiences.

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Welcome to Learn and Lead. I write about learning, leadership, performance, management, elearning, training, blogging, tools, trends. Looking forward to your valuable comments.