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I was having a conversation with someone yesterday afternoon about how the number of software vendors offering wikis, blogs, discussions boards, rapid elearning, etc. was enormous and that there would certainly come a time when things would begin to consolidate and major players would begin to emerge.  This will prevent organizations from having to cobble together these elements and the pain and inefficiencies associated with cobbling.

An ‘ERP of Learning’ is sure to be on the horizon was the synopsis of our talk - then I saw a press release from OutStart today [note - this is not my prediction that this is the 'Learning ERP'...just an indication that it's a comin'] detailing the merger of OutStart and Eedo.

As Chief Learning Officers become more prevalent and powerful and as the trends in learning continue to incorporate elements of informal learning (i.e. communities of practice) and others suitable for knowledge workers it will be an exciting time to watch as the various software offerings in the learning space make moves to secure their future or their fate - there are certainly demands in the market for this functionality and a sole source vendor to provide it doesn’t exist yet.

CLO Media posted a recent executive briefing where they provide four things that CEOs and Chief Learning Officers [CLOs] should be considering when operating their business.  I agree with the categories listed in the article but they are quite high level (it is a ‘briefing’ for a reason I suppose) and allow the reader to determine how each would be executed.

For a CEO or CLO that is planning to ramp up efforts in these areas it provides an opportunity to do things a bit more progressively in implementation - examples provided as they relate to the four CLO suggestions…

1. Develop strategically with purpose: one of the snippets from this section is “have a clear definition of a desired future” - in today’s rapidly changing world it’s difficult to have a static vision of a future that will be the basis for processes and decisions implemented now; utilizing the process of scenario planning is a way to identify multiple futures (scenarios) and then determine the common denominators threaded throughout.  These common elements can then be used by the CLO to begin looking at high-level competencies that would be valuable regardless of which future the organization ends up living.
2. Focus on core competencies first: I would describe core competencies as those that will not be changing in the foreseeable future.  Competency development initiatives are often centered around the current state of the organization, market, product portfolio, etc.  All of those factors (plus many others) can change quickly and having competencies that will prevail through all conditions are what I would truly consider ‘core.’  Referring back to #1, scenario planning is a great way to plan for the competencies that will be crucial in many different settings.
3. Target opportunities intentionally instead of reacting to problems: reacting to problems often results in Band-Aid solutions that may mask symptoms for a few days, weeks or even years before they come back to haunt the original target or manifest themselves in a new way in a different part of the organization.  [A classic example is a company with lagging sales that launches a large price cut promotion and due to the diminished revenue from the price cut is unable to meet the demand generated by the promotion and now faces quality and customer service issues.]  An effective and progressive way of addressing this is by viewing the organization as a system - an interdependent collection of pieces where action in one area will result in consequences [good or bad] in another.  This approach is known as systems thinking and has yielded impressive results for organizations around the world - utilizing it provides a way to identify opportunities to tweak operations and model potential outcomes that would otherwise be left to chance.
4. Embrace change: harnessing incremental change and having a progressive approach to change management are certainly crucial but often challenging.  People are often creatures of habit and start to like that with which they become familiar.  So changing that can be difficult.  Utilizing a social network analysis is a powerful tool that provides an organizational x-ray showing how information is transferred around the network that comprises an organization.  Information from a network analysis can be used to identify people in the organization that are sought out most often - the influencers.  Utilizing these individuals in change management results in a much more targeted effort to managing change than the traditional shotgun approach.

As I mentioned above, the tenets offered in the original briefing by CLO Media are valid ones and their high-level descriptions leave the interpretation of implementation to the reader.  Each of the topics listed offers an opportunity to do something a little more progressive and effective than the norm, to embrace our transition to a knowledge society teeming with fluid, dynamic learning organizations in which tools and tactics from yesteryear will be rendered obsolete.

If you keep up with tech even the slightest bit you know that Apple, Inc. overall and especially it’s Mac line of computers are red hot. I have several friends that have made the switch and have suggested for a long time that I do the same. For reasons that span from frustration with PCs to video/photo/audio editing needs to an organizational philosophy that better aligns with that of Orbital RPM, I decided to take the plunge. I converted.

Beyond just switching to a Mac I intended to jump in with both feet. I wanted to ween myself of Outlook in favor of Mail, iCal and Address Book. I would embrace iTunes for my digital entertainment needs and write these posts on a Safari bowser. While not giving up Word, Excel & Powerpoint for client work I committed to learning Numbers, Pages and Keynote for things that could live within Orbital RPM’s walls.

I misjudged how difficult a transition this would be. My computer is something that is tethered to me for the better part of everyday. Although my old PC had plenty of idiosyncrasies at least I was aware of them and usually sometimes knew what to do about them. We’d been through a lot together. The switch to Mac felt like moving into a foreign and unfamiliar new house built on green engineering after coming home to the same, outdated home in an aging subdivision for about 13 years. I liked the possibilities that were now offered to me but it was going to take some getting used to.

This is where the comprehensiveness of Apple’s strategy shone through. Apple asked the question, “Who do we count on for success?” Engineers, programmers and sales people are all obviously contained in there as they are for Apple’s competition. Apple applied the question to their entire value-chain, though, and concluded that customers were also an important part of this strategy working. Seems silly I know but stay with me here. Since Apple counts on its customers for success, they decided to include them in their learning strategy. They invested in my learning.

For $99 I chose to become a member of the One-to-One program. This program allowed me to take one hour of individual training per week for a year. That means I can get 52 [edit] hours of custom, just-in-time education for $99. This is clearly not a profit center for Apple. But is it a wise investment?

For their part of the deal Apple gets customers that are well versed in the unique features and benefits of their product. A product that is different from the one that all of their competitors offer and one that is different from what about 93% of their marketshare uses. To me it seems like a worthwhile expenditure to subsidize a learning strategy that will ensure newly converted customers will stay with their new product and of course buy more in the future.

The One-to-One program has been instrumental in my satisfaction with the new computer. Having to re-learn so many new things comes with a long list of questions. Knowing that I can have them answered weekly by a person that I’m sitting down with face-to-face instills a sense of calm in a situation that would normally produce high levels of anxiety. Oh…I forgot to mention that each time I’ve been in the retail store for my lessons I’ve bought peripherals that probably average $250 per trip; that will (hopefully) go down since I’ve only been to three classes but it definitely influences buying behavior to know that I’ll be in their store often

An important lesson is contained within Apple’s strategy. If they only focused on making great products but not ensuring people were able to use them I highly doubt they would be enjoying the success they are…I know that I would not be a Mac owner. By determining who an organization counts on for their success and considering those groups for inclusion in their overall learning strategy it serves to benefit the sponsoring organization.

Who all do you count on for success in your organization? Are any of them outside of your organization’s walls? What could they know more of, better or different that would increase your success? How can they be incorporated into your learning strategy?

Check out a real-time Digg Swarm. 

This is a fascinating view of the chaotic rhythm of a crowd seeking the information it wants.  It’s messy, it’s unpredictable and it’s reality.  And it’s precisely the reason that formal training programs account for (at most) only 20% of how people get the information they need to do their job. 

 If you’re not familiar with Digg it’s a website that allows its users to select (digg) things that they find interesting on the net.  Those nuggets are read and rated by other Digg users and this determines how popular an item is.  This results in a community that relies on the recommendations of the greater whole to select content for the individual.  It’s an effective system at weeding through the reams of information the Internet spews daily.

Watch as people ‘hop’ from article to article on a journey to their chosen destination at the speed that’s right for them.  You’re seeing self-directed learning in its purest form.  How effective would training classes be for these folks?  They’re obviously accustomed to getting the info they want when they want it, is a classroom the best venue for them to get info regarding their job?

With the social network craze and the ‘we are smarter than me’ philosophies we’re hearing about quite often, the way in which we gather, share, find and use information has permanently changed.  Most of us are now full-fledged knowledge workers whether we think so or not and the toolboxes of training and development departments need to reflect the shift. 

Communities of Practice, Web 2.0, and the myriad other learning and development terms that are in heavy rotation are evidence that some progressive approaches need to be thrown into the traditional mix.  Classroom training isn’t dead - it will always serve a unique niche in the learning portfolio - I think it will just diminish to the point that it matches it’s impact on participants (<20%).

 Embracing informal learning in organizations will become a necessity in just a few years due to us becoming a knowledge society.  There are tons of articles out there that will tell you so - if you happen to run across one, Digg it!

Here’s an interesting video with some Googlers talking about knowledge and the economic impact: 

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=h8XDceL8jd0[/youtube]

My father used to say that you could always tell where a company was struggling by watching their commercials.  Many years later that still rings true as I watch companies try to shape their public percpetion with carefully crafted ads that seem targeted from focus groups and customer surveys. 

With that in mind, what perception do you think Kodak is trying to overcome with this internal commercial?

To me it looks, feels and sounds like an internal PR campaign from a company that has grossly missed the turning point in their industry.  Instead of spotting the trend many years ago, now they’re forced to announce their entrance into the digital world via a mea culpa that would have you think that they’ve been developing some of the best digital technology the world will ever see during their absence from the field.  I’m not convinced.

I saw a brief blurb on the news that Kodak’s workforce is half of what is was three years ago.  Here is what a local Rochester station said last month.

I will not claim that a learning culture at Kodak would have prevented this - but hey…I’m biased and I do think that instilling the elements of a learning organization would have strongly contributed to a different story for Kodak’s recent years. 

A learning organization is one that learns from its mistakes and successes, spots trends in the market and acts on them by being nimble enough to do so.  A culture of learning rewards knowledge sharing which reduces the chances that you’ll be blindsided by something like digital in 2007.

Kodak could have presented themselves as a picture company many years ago - whether those pictures are on film or in a file it shouldn’t matter.  Part of making that transition would require a company that is ready to learn and develop.  For those in Rochester that are now getting their close-up as a result of the press attributed to their drastically late entrance into the market.  Say…cheese?

In the Society of Organizational Learning’s e-newsletter today, they included a snippet of Peter Senge talking about organizational culture and learning.  As the person credited with bringing organizational learning to the mainstream largely through his book, The Fifth Discipline, it’s interesting to hear Senge give his thoughts on the definition of culture and its impact on learning.

Listen to it here.

It’s obvious that our world is undergoing changes that are far beyond advances in organizational learning and development…but some of the similarities are apparent.

Business 2.o’s recent cover read “The Next Disruptors:  Meet 11 Companies Whose Breakthroughs Will Change Everything.”  In it we meet businesses that are tackling everything from software to lending to advertising.

The common thread through all seems to be individualization.  Consumers today are becoming more and more catered to and as a result are receiving products and services that are more refined to meet their needs.  We get what we want instead of taking what we’re given.

• Advertising:  Most people were forced to watch commercials on TV breaks because they didn’t want to miss what was “up next” - TiVO has changed that forever and advertisers are now forced to rely on products placed in the actual shows.  Think there’s a market there?  Hamet Watt does.  His company NextMedium “automates and standardizes the process of product placement in TV shows, movies, and videogames.” 
• The two players mentioned in the technology space are Coghead and NetVibes.  Both are built on the philosophy of end-users creating exactly what is right for them.  With NetVibes, more for the individual, “users can rapidly change the look of their start page, select content, add RSS feeds, and custom-build features from other Netvibes users.”  While with Coghead, more for organizations, users “who can code a simple Excel macro should have little trouble using Coghead to create even sophisticated enterprise apps like logistics trackers, CRM programs, or project management systems.”
• And then there’s lending.  A company by the name of Zopa has created a peer-to-peer model for people to lend and borrow money that cuts out the bank, gives lower rates to borrowers and a return to individuals as lenders.  Brilliant! 

These three examples reflect the progressive trends bubbling up in learning and development.  No longer do participants want to sit in a class when much of the information being presented doesn’t pertain to them.  They want to ‘fast-forward’ to what matters.  They want the option to customize things just they way they need or like them.  And, they get most of what they need from their peers. 

Hence the popularity of podcasting, social networking sites, nano-learning, workflow learning, mobile learning and communities of practice.  Take out the middle-men, edit out the commercials, let us get the information to do our jobs when we need it and how we like it.

In the coming years I’m sure we’ll see this trend of customer customization only grow.  As societies figure out that they control what the market gives them, more and more we will be demanding just what we need.  The field of learning and development is paralleling these changes and what is now considered traditional training will be so 1.o.

I have just returned to my room after the first day of the CLO Academy in Lansdowne, VA.  The sessions started at 5pm so I’ve only seen a glimpse of what we’re we will be experiencing but so far so good.

At the orientation session we were told that our time here will largely be playing the role of consultant’s with a fictitious firm.  I don’t know much more about it yet but if I did I wouldn’t write about it - you’ll have to experience it for yourself. 

Following orientation we were introduced to Frank J. Anderson who is the President of Defense Acquisition University.  Frank talked about his experience at DAU and how he has guided this organization (with a budget of $120 billion - yes billion) to be a world-class learning organization.  His stories and examples were amazing yet somehow easily understandable to an audience that cannot comprehend overseeing a budget, staff and responsibility the size of Frank’s.  I was thilled to hear Frank mention terms such as Communities of Practice and Action Learning - he told the group he had not come from a learning and development background but had surrounded himself with people that were experts in it - he clearly selected a talented team.

CLO Academy is really taking advantage of the informal learning opportunities here.  During dinner I ate at a small table with other participants and with a faculty member that is also a learning executive with Microsoft. 

The final activity was a ‘Fireside Chat.’  A voluntary session where we sat in a circle, drank wine and did a freeform exchange of ideas from all of our different sets of experience.  Frank Anderson loosely led the discussion but the group largely set the course of what we talked about. 

More to come from me - but not tonight.  It’s late and I still have my consulting homework to do…

In an e-seminar hosted by CLO Magazine yesterday, presenter Josh Bersin of Bersin and Associates facilitated a talk titled, “Increasing the Strategic Value of Learning Organizations.”  You can find the slides here - the recording should be available here shortly.

Note: If you wish you had known about this e-seminar, we keep an up-to-date calendar on Orbital RPM’s site where you can search for events (big as small) throughout the learning and development field and send reminders directly to your calendar or email.

There are many good nuggets of information contained in Josh’s talk but in the interest of focus I will highlight one.  Bersin and Associates is known for their quantitative research in the field of learning and development and the statistics from one of Josh’s slides was intriguing to me.

The following percentages indicate how much more effective or efficient organizations were (in the areas listed) that have a highly effective Cheif Learning Officer (CLO) in their ranks:

• Partnering with Lines of Business: + 12%
• Measuring the Impact of Learning: + 20%
• Developing Innovative e-Learning: + 14%
• Sharing Best Practices: + 15%
• Making the Most of Resources: +12%
• Developing High Job Satisfaction: +10%

These numbers are compelling.  As the strategic role of learning and development continues its climb up the ranks of organizational credibility, it’s studies like these that will give it a boost.  Everybody loves data and these are numbers that any Executive would like to see.