Making learning work for learners is more than a tagline for me.
It’s my commitment to the world.
It’s the arena in which I dream, play, and work.
It’s what I was born to do.
Even with the upheavals of the past three years, what’s important in making learning work for learners has not changed.
Behind the scenes in 2023…
the Learning Evangelist is working on new products and services that will support subject-expert speakers and those who work with them.
A new website is being created to celebrate 20 years of learner advocacy and support for learning leaders…and celebrate new opportunities.
The sandboxes I’m playing in…
- Awakening a widespread learners-first mindset
- Inspiring the subject experts we rely on for content
- Giving those experts what they need to create and lead learning opportunities
- Aligning learning operations systems with organizational goals and learners’ needs
- Cultivating continuous improvement in learning operations and opportunities
And when it comes to learning, we can definitely be curious, play, and explore wonder.
I look forward to sharing it all with you later this year.
It’s not what you give them; it’s what they take away that counts. – Mel Silberman, 1942-2010
The effectiveness of conference learning continues to be on the minds of many in the association world.
Conferences are primarily learning events, and as such I think we can all agree participant learning needs to be the focus. A lot of the conversations I see on this topic revolve around conference organizers and session leaders, and rarely include those who attend these sessions. Instead of thinking only about getting session leaders to be more engaging, a shift in perception and focus to that of being a “learner advocate” would put both organizer and session leader into a learner-centered mindset. And that shift, while seemingly subtle, can have huge ramifications on what learners take away.
At the same time, attention needs to be paid to helping learners be more effective in their role – learn and apply.
Jeff Cobb devotes a section of his excellent book Leading the Learning Revolution to this topic, in which he comments about shifting power to the learners: Continue reading →
If you’ve had any doubts we’re in the middle of a learning revolution, consider this: Jane Hart, Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies and one of my favorite learning thought leaders, once wrote “An increasing number of knowledge workers are finding their own solutions to their individual and team learning and performance problems on the Social Web… bypassing both the IT and L&D [learning & development] department.”
It’s a new world of personal knowledge management (PKM), and this post is still valid; in it, Jane describes some of the changes corporate learning departments are making to adapt. With corporate L&D professionals shifting their roles from providing learning content to supporting employees in learning how to manage their own learning activities, how might this affect associations’ roles in learning?
Considering that associations seem for some reason to lag a year or two behind the corporate world, now is the time to be thinking about it!
Here are a few of my thoughts: Continue reading →