Reflections from #Learning2013

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending Elliott Masie’s Learning 2013 conference in Orlando.  In addition to learning a great deal, I also facilitated two breakout sessions during the conference – which was both an enjoyable experience during, as well as an enlightening one in the preparation stages.  Here are some of my thoughts related to topics that seemed to continuously emerge during the event.

Steve Hudson facilitating 'Hate to Great...'

70 : 20 : 10

The 70 : 20 : 10 model was repeatedly mentioned to talk about where learning occurs.  You can learn more about the model here, but essentially, 70% of learning takes place on the job and through performance support, 20% is social learning including coaching and mentoring, and 10% is learned from courses and readings. 

It’s tough to digest that statistic as a learning professional.  My gut reaction is that organized learning is much more valuable.  However, as I reflect on my own learning, it certainly begins to pass the gut check test.  Rarely do I attend classes to learn something.  Typically I Google how to do something, ask someone in my network, or just figure it out as I go along. 

The prime takeaways are that there is a huge, untapped market for learning professionals to help leverage in the 90%.  This can come from organizational constructs that are put in place such as social media platforms or groups within them or from leveraging experts as mentors throughout an organization.  Additionally, as you look at workplace learning, where is all the money spent?  Is it the 10%?  Is that the best bang for the buck?  Likely no.

Measure Impact or Don’t Measure Anything at All

From both an interesting session from Nigel Paine as well as a lunchtime conversation with Elliott Masie, there seemed to be a lot of emphasis on metrics.  Instead of stressing the importance of measuring everything or measuring everyone, they focused on measuring what the learning is actually trying to accomplish. 

The goal of learning isn’t to fill classrooms or to measure online enrollments – it’s to change behavior.  So, it isn’t appropriate to measure the success of your learning design by counting the participants who attended or doing smile sheets afterward.  While those things may be important to learning teams, they don’t matter at all to the business.  Rather, you should be looking at metrics of on the job behavior beforehand and comparing them to those after the learning intervention.

If you are creating online learning content to help educate employees about safety while transporting their laptop, the only thing that matters is a reduction in the number of laptop theft/losses.  The number of people who took the course or enjoyed it doesn’t matter.  The end goal is to have an impact on behavior.

Take criticism seriously, but not personally

A quote from Hillary Clinton that was paraphrased by Jane Pauley talked about living a life where you are criticized publically.  In addition to having skin “as thick as a rhinoceros,” there is another important aspect to dealing with criticism.  It should be understood and appreciated through the lens it was created, but never taken personally. 

Political talking heads will often insult those who don’t agree with them.  That shouldn’t be internalized.  However, there is likely some nugget or insight to their perspective that is being shared, if you can get through the nonsense.  Seriously examining the core of what they are saying can often be beneficial.

While most of us are not famous and don’t face this same criticism, it is likely there for everyone in smaller doses.  With rivalries and cliques in a workplace, it’s important to understand that you are all there for the same purpose (helping others, making money, etc).  If there is criticism that you hear, being able to take a step back and examine the core of it without taking it personally can be the key to building more productive relationships that will ultimately elevate all parties.

Micro-reflections

In attending many other sessions, there was a good deal of material, quotes, insights, and tidbits that were picked up.  While they didn’t resonate with me or connect to other presentations like the thoughts above, I thought it important to note them:

• We’re doing pretty well – As I attended sessions on implementing social media into learning and a bit on mobile, I couldn’t help but appreciate the strides that we have made in my own company in these areas.  It isn’t that everyone is doing all of these things, but there are certainly pockets that are incorporating these technologies or are poised to do so at a very high level. 
• There’s a lot of interpretation to ‘mobile learning’ – Attending sessions on mobile allowed me to see several perspectives of what people considered mobile learning.  From websites that were mobile friendly to full-fledged apps, there was a wide variety of mobile learning.  Ultimately my takeaway is that when working with mobile, design for mobile.  It’s a different device, it’s used in different places, it has different capabilities.  While some may use it as a second screen while their primary machine is crunching numbers or rendering videos, oftentimes, what makes mobile beneficial is that it can be used anywhere.  Am I going to take a 300 slide click through module at a traffic stop?  No.  However, I certainly check my Twitter feed.  If you learning is tailored to the device and the need, mobile can be successful and more than just a gimmick to appease leaders who want to be able to say they have mobile learning.
• xAPI (Tin Can) – At a session from individuals in the ADL, it was enlightening and refreshing to hear them say that xAPI works great for non-traditional content.  Things like videos, social, games, and other elements that can benefit from learning tracking work really well with xAPI.  If your learners always consume your content from a network-connected computer that is hooked to an LMS, there is really no need to go to xAPI as opposed to SCORM, if it is meeting your needs.  It was nice to hear someone finally stop talking about xAPI as if it is the only standard to use in the future and a full replacement of SCORM at all times.
• The grass sometimes looks browner – In my session “From Hate to Great: Making the Best of Your LMS” we discussed what we have implemented in our organizations to bridge the shortcomings of our LMSs.  For example, we use an LMS that you can’t readily Google support questions, so we built an internally-supported wiki for admins to share our instructions and help with using the system.  During the conversation, there was an overwhelming amount of discussion of the pain points people experience from their own systems.  For many in the room, it seemed that they felt better when they left that they didn’t have to deal with all the problems the other people had.  The grass certainly appeared greener (despite the weeds) where they were currently standing.