Image by fellowcreative via FlickrASTD has an article based on the book The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow's Employees Today, which is co-authored by Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd.
Jeanne Meister is an internationally recognized thought leader, speaker, and author in enterprise learning. She is a co-founder of Future Workplace and frequent blog contributor to the Harvard Business Review. Karie Willyerd was the vice president and chief learning officer for Sun Microsystems, recognized by ASTD with a BEST Award in 2009.
In this article for ASTD they look at what the future holds for how people would learn Looking Ahead
What I find exciting about the future of learning based on this article is that it looks at simulations and social gaming, augmented reality and collaborative web 2.0 - that are core to the values of Organization 2.0 - and make me feel vindicated :-)
The big question is - will current trainers and facilitators be ready to adapt to these new methods - or will they be rendered irrelevant ?
The predictions from the article:
Jeanne Meister is an internationally recognized thought leader, speaker, and author in enterprise learning. She is a co-founder of Future Workplace and frequent blog contributor to the Harvard Business Review. Karie Willyerd was the vice president and chief learning officer for Sun Microsystems, recognized by ASTD with a BEST Award in 2009.
In this article for ASTD they look at what the future holds for how people would learn Looking Ahead
What I find exciting about the future of learning based on this article is that it looks at simulations and social gaming, augmented reality and collaborative web 2.0 - that are core to the values of Organization 2.0 - and make me feel vindicated :-)
The big question is - will current trainers and facilitators be ready to adapt to these new methods - or will they be rendered irrelevant ?
The predictions from the article:
Prediction 1| Augmented reality learning emerges
So what could be the implications for social learning? Simulations and games could take on a whole new level of interactivity, technical training could be done virtually without expensive labs, and management conferences could become networking events designed around finding knowledge content built on a pre-event profile, just to name a few. Even in prototype, SixthSense is less than $350, so in the near future, the device could be a highly affordable supplement in the learning environment.
Prediction 2| Most learning incorporates use of a mobile device
With increased capabilities of real time search on all mobile devices, learning will truly be just in time. Ask a question, get an answer. Our world will turn into three-minute learning vignettes. When you incorporate GPS sensitivity into a learning environment, many possibilities emerge.
Similar to the GPS-sensitive program FourSquare, we could design check-in points for new hires to get to know their company and its history. Or with programs such as Serendipity (under development at MIT), set our social networking profile to alert us whenever we're near an expert in the topic of our choice. Perhaps the future role of learning is to find, organize, and enable the experts?
Prediction 3| Games and simulations are used for every content area
The Millennial generation, which will comprise the majority of the workforce in just a few years, grew up on GameBoys, World of Warcraft, and EVE Online. IBM has already studied whether participation in massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) develops leadership skills. They found that having to recruit a guild, fulfill a series of tasks, motivate, and retain a guild led to the development of leadership skills. MMORPGs can be nonviolent, virtual-world–building games as well, with experiments in teaching math and science already under way.
A management simulation provides the ability for what Michael Schrage has called "serious play"—an opportunity to innovate, take risks, and practice in a safe environment.
But games and simulations aren't just for management. New-hire games can be used even in advance of hiring to allow players to become familiar with a company's products and services. Collaboration is increasingly important at most companies, and games could take a key role in teaching collaboration skills.
Prediction 4| We will have a huge app-etite
In the words of Apple's marketing department, "there's an app for that." In the case of applications for iPhone and iPod touch, more than 130,000 have been developed to date. Morgan Stanley predicts 500,000 new applications before the end of 2010. Since people are already accustomed to the convenience and functionality of apps, a whole new breed of apps for corporate environments will emerge. Corporate HR and learning functions will get into the business of custom app development. Possible apps include
* acronym lookup
* product description and specs apps
* benefits chooser
* campus and conference room map
* room scheduler
* retirement planner
* expert locator
* virtual profile (replacing the company phone directory)
* cafeteria menus and reviews
* virtual manager.
With just a little work, you could probably brainstorm another 10 apps in the next 10 minutes. Nearly anything that is in print now can be converted into a rich, constantly updated application.
Prediction 5| Peer-to-peer learning blossoms
When people attend conferences or workshops, it's not unusual to read in the evaluations that one of the most beneficial aspects of the event was the ability to network and learn from peers. Through technology, that peer-to-peer learning has now taken on a whole new level of meaning. While baby boomer managers fret that time spent on Facebook is a time waster, Millennials can't imagine getting their work done without relying on the tribe they've collected through their online social networks.
To mediate an organization's concerns for security while balancing the need to allow people to connect, expect to see a proliferation of platforms aimed at Facebook-type applications in the organization. Furthermore, expect some of these platforms to be specifically developed in the learning field and incorporated or integrated with the LMS. Learning functions will be able to determine which content is most in demand by perusing the most popular and most viewed content, and then assembling content developed by contributors into formal learning courses.
At this point, knowledge management and training become such a seamless continuum that it becomes fruitless to try and separate them functionally. Anticipate that learning functions will become the new and improved knowledge management owners as well.
Prediction 6| Expert and credibility ratings create trusted search networks
In a study at the University of California at Berkeley, it was estimated that knowledge is doubling every 18 months. Combine that with the time it takes to become an expert, which is usually estimated at 10,000 hours of practice, or roughly 10 years. No sooner do you become an expert than your knowledge is outdated.
Now consider how you spend your days and how you learn about something quickly. For example, maybe you'd never heard the term "MMPORG" before. If you're like most people, you would be unlikely to look up a training course on MMPORG as your first stop. Instead, you go to your favorite online search engine and type in the term. The problem is that there is so much information available, you might not know which definition to trust.
As search evolves, we will be able to identify industry experts and friends whom we trust, and our search results will include in the algorithm of results those sites and resources that our trusted sources have indicated as solid content. For example, you might add Tony Bingham, the president and CEO of ASTD, as a trusted source. If Tony had endorsed a definition of MMPORG, then that definition would rise to the top of your search results. Your tribe of trusted sources will become the way for you to navigate through the proliferating mass of online information.
Prediction 7| Search bots go on the prowl for you
It's one thing to know what term or question to type into a search engine, and it's another thing entirely to know the terms you should use or the questions you should be asking. As Will Rogers once said, "It's not what you know that hurts you, it's what you know that ain't so." In other words, with all the knowledge available, it's what is out there that you don't know about that can hurt you.
Now imagine that you've completed a search profile that says you are in sales training, in a major pharmaceutical company based in New Jersey. You'd like to know about the top developments in healthcare reform, any news alerts for the major suppliers you rely on, important news feeds on products and executives in your company, and a search through any publication in the world relevant to training for pharmaceutical sales reps.
Your bot will be at your service, culling the data on the web and delivering it to your doorstep every morning. Like any good pet, it will get better with feedback and training, so you will teach it to become more accurate by indicating that you like some bits of content and not others. Your own personal information robotic concierge, at your service soon!
Prediction 8| Governments will become more involved in ensuring that its citizens have access to training and retraining
With advances in human longevity, the economic setbacks many people experienced during the last few years, and a backlash against an unfettered corporate focus on profit, governments are starting to see that the strain put on their purses due to unemployment and underemployment is out of balance. In Korea for example, the government not only provides tax benefits for training investment, but also provides co-investment dollars.
Expect to see governments provide more incentives for retraining workers. These incentives could include anything from tax incentives to authorizing personal accounts, much like 401(k) retirement savings plans in the United States. Sometimes called "Lifelong Learning Accounts (LiLAs)," California, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Washington, and other U.S. states have introduced legislation to provide tax credits and breaks for investment in training.
Imagine a day when the learning function is not only getting funds from the corporate budgets, but individuals can elect to attend classes using their LiLA account money. Will that change the way learning functions think about the offerings they have available, and will it drive even more cooperation with universities to provide focused, relevant curriculum?
Prediction 9| The learning function's focus shifts to accreditation, with less emphasis on the learning process itself
As the amount of knowledge required to perform the job moves more and more to instant access, it will become less and less likely that people will prove their credentials by having an internal corporate training completion on their personnel records. Instead, learning functions will set the standards of performance required to achieve accreditation, install systems for enabling achievement of that accreditation, and track completion.
Prediction 10| You will be rated publicly, much like a Yelp or Amazon rating for people
Yelp is a popular social networking and review site where users rate and comment on local restaurants. The Millennial generation is accustomed to relying on user input on sites such as rateyourprofessor.com to steer everything from where to have fish tacos to which professors to avoid at college. Few people order from Amazon without looking at the cumulative rating stars of past purchasers. Sites such as glassdoor.com already provide insights regarding the culture, pay, and management quality. It is not a big leap to assume that eventually, managers will be publicly rated, followed by everyone being rated.
Will it change a manager's behavior if he knows that his tendency toward berating employees will show up in a public review the next day? Will the manager who chronically micromanages begin to adjust her behavior if multiple reviewers have commented on the same thing? It is one thing to go into the quiet of your office to review a private 360-degree report and quite another to have your children reading about your work behaviors.
This may be one of the scariest predictions so far, as you wonder about the fairness of disgruntled employees commenting publicly. On Yelp, the establishment owners are allowed to provide a rebuttal on comments, so this could be a feature of how a public people review system would work. But do anticipate that privacy has taken a whole new turn and will continue to do so as we progress.
Learning's future: champion or outcast?
One of the main reasons we like to think about the future is because we hope the learning and development field will be the first to step up to take ownership of many of the ideas we have presented here. We've been in learning functions where people have said they think social networking is a fad and micro-blogging is a waste of time. We beg to differ, and believe that the next generation of work coming into organizations will demand being able to work in ways they've already found to enable success. If the learning function does not step up to the task, some other department in the organization will, and a learning function will become irrelevant.
On the other hand, if the learning function has a vision for the future, and works patiently to inspire organizations to move into a new way of work and learning, the relevance and core criticality for business success could be unprecedented in our field's history.
Which will we choose?
