Post conference week. What do you do?

Last week saw many big conferences on both sides of the Atlantic. Learning Technologies, Learning and Skills, The Cloud and BETT were all in London. ASDT TechKnowledge in the USA.

If you attended any of these then this week be prepared to suffer the consequences.

Each time your badge was scanned you got added to a mailing list. Each time you walked up and down a staircase or changed shows at Olympia you were counted and became a statistic.

Did you go home with a carrier bag full of brochures? Please tell me, what did you do with them? Are they in the recycling yet?

This week all those who managed to grab your name will be emailing or calling. How do you filter these and take the calls worth hearing?

For many years I worked that side of the fence, standing at the trade show trying to accumulate as many contacts as possible in two short expensive days. A couple of days after the show the data arrived. Now was follow up time. That starts today.

Well if you as vendor are reading this be aware from the punter angle and if you attended, be aware from the vendor angle, please.

I have been out of the office since Tuesday last week. The pile of paper on my desk this morning all needs dealing with. I have 30 important saved emails from the 400 or so that arrived that I could not deal with from my iPhone. All need to be replied or actioned by tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest. Do I have time to follow up with anyone other than those I already promised? Most of the other attendees are just like me.

So here is what to expect from me.

If I spoke to you and said ‘let’s lunch’ or you saw me put you on a list in my phone. Expect an email today or tomorrow.

If I visited your stand and asked you for a business card, call me I will take your call or call you back if you leave a message. There are two whose card I took who can expect a call from me, I want to purchase what you had.

I have clients who are looking and look to me to be abreast of new things and new offerings. Check out my site ‘click here’ Email mail me if I visited and you scanned my badge. If you call I will say hello but I will be honest and tell you I don’t have time today to chat.

If you think you missed me and have something great to show me that my clients may like then email me and tell me.

If you, like me, attended these shows then I ask you don’t ignore the people you saw. When I was on that side of the fence there was nothing worse than leaving a lot of voicemails and getting no reply or emailing as I had been asked to do to find myself just being ignored. So if you email me you will get a reply. If you call, leave not only your number but your email address. I will get back to you but probably not till later this week.

Have fun in follow up week, those of you, you know who you are, expect my call or email.

#LT13UK Honest review

I decided unlike others to knee jerk a blog out about #lt13uk this year until I had a few days to gather some thoughts.

The day after I attended an International Think Tank meeting hosted by the LPI and then Friday I walked the floor at BETT (another post).

So hear I am, thoughts gathered and ready to hit the keys. (new pen to paper?)

Three shows in one. Learning Technologies, Learning and Skills and The Cloud. Oh yes and a conference upstairs.

Very few of them at the conference ventured down to the exhibition floor. Well excuse the pun but it was below them (two floors). The most expensive conference on the circuit and sold out. Many however spend £1000 to attend but won’t spend the same £1000 on their staff as they have no budget! That’s not me being controversial but a reality. Shame really.

So to the exhibitions. LT first.

First day was very busy, second not so much. First impression was that the stands were far bigger, much more self build extravagance and to be honest, to much ‘ours is bigger and better than yours’ for my liking.

Networking around the floor was great. So many good conversations over two days. Lots of upbeat life in the market but little expecting to spend any real money on anything. Great to look to see what’s new said many. But they also said its hard to find anything new.

Responsive web design seemed the big theme with a very limited talk of xAPI (Tin Can). Those I met were interested in seeing what I had produced in xAPI as it was not talk about it but the chance to see it. I found only two vendors with anything to show and to be honest they were not good examples. More if a replacement for SCORM. Since the show I have been asked are there any case studies I can provide. Well the spec does not release till April, so a bit early I would say for a case study of any worth. Early adoption is probably a better way to look at it.

There was mobile mobile mobile on every stand. However, it was very clear from the vast majority of corporates that they have no mobile strategy at this time and for many it’s not on their radar! Maybe that will be the biggest change if the show has any influence on the market.

All in all LT was a good exhibition, the stages were well attended but they were very much sales presentations. If I am honest I think there were too many stages. All back to back and very noisy.

Onto Learning and Skills.

Whoa, what a difference 20 yards into the red zone makes.

The stark difference as you walked out of technology sales and into the real nitty gritty learning and training and skills world. This is what training and learning is all about, no?

The big stands were gone, shell scheme everywhere and so many who need a lesson in how to promote themselves. Hand drawn pictures stuck poorly on the walks, messy tables, unclear statements. People in stands clicking on phones not even noticing the punters walking by. Many less people, stands closer together and it felt like you were walking the gauntlet in every isle.

Henry at Happy Computers grabbed me and gave me a copy of his book, thanks Henry will read it this week.

I was offered 5 types of post it notes, and lots of trainer props. Oh and of course the hotels and conference centre people all want to do you a deal.

I am not completely sure I got this section of the show at all. It did however have the quietest coffee area and I met a number of people there to talk.

Did it promote anything new to me about learning or teaching skills? Err no!

Onto The Cloud

Feet now killing me after two days I ventured down to The Cloud. I think it was the same organiser, hence you got free entry. But it really was a different exhibition.

Down a long staircase and into the great hall of Olympia and this was a huge exhibition selling you…. The Cloud!

I am sure there was every major exhibitor here. The theme? Data farms, data storage and app delivery from.,. You guessed it, The Cloud.

200 exhibitors all selling me the same thing. I started asking what makes your cloud better than theirs. I got a few nerdy answers about redundancy and networks and gigabyte throughputs but I am not better informed.

No post it notes here, but I got a couple of USB drives and free water. £2.50 a bottle upstairs.

Then I had a realisation. Big one!

If these people come upstairs are they going to see what I see downstairs? Loads of vendors some on huge stands looking to big to approach, all selling the same stuff?

If you are an upstairs vendor, think about this for next year!

Pedometer reported 10.7 miles in two days. No wonder my legs hurt!

Lots of people to follow up conversations with next week after two interesting days at Learning Technologies and Learning and Skills.

Next stop, Singapore for Learning World at the end of the month, then looking forward to Learning Solutions in Orlando. This for me is normally the best conference of the year. Time to start getting excited.

My day at BETT

Spent all day Friday walking the exhibition at BETT and all day yesterday thinking about it.

A new venue, coincided with LT13 and for the first time to include workplace learning.

They called it a conference (that’s a laugh) thousands of teachers with little budget oo’ing at technology they probably can’t afford. Hundreds of kids milling around. Why?

A few stages dotted about, crammed to the gills with people trying to hear over the exhibition noise and about 1000 exhibitors trying to force their brochure in your hand. Everyone with multiple huge carrier bags full of them. I wonder how much ends up in the recycling by the end if this weekend!

There has to be a better design.

No roadmap to find your way around, no logical layout of the hall, no real colour scheme and a lousy map. I thought the iPhone app was cool till I tried to use it on site.

They set out the hall supposedly in areas but with little signage, I was, according to my badge, part of ‘workplace learning’ took me 4 goes round and I found something called workplace learning lounge. It was full of teachers eating their packed lunch. Not another workplace badge in sight. My pedometer reported 3 miles by the time I left.

Were there specific workplace vendors? If so I missed that entirely.

Networking was non existent. I had two conversations with vendors. One with the coolest overhead projector I ever saw making an Elmo look like a monster from an older era, I can’t wait to order one. And, a conversation with a guy with some animation software. Problem you would need a year to make a 10 minute animation.

I had a further two conversations with attendees who were willing to chat none who was confused like me and another when I stopped for an overpriced tasteless bagel. He was from Eastern Europe and was surprised that everything was video technology.

Lots to learn from this shambolic ‘conference’.

Maybe they will hire me to make it a real conference next year.

The controversial changing face of training

For over 15 years I have been delivering in class events for eLearning designers, developers, managers and Instructional Designers. I spent years teaching groups how to develop eLearning that works. That has all changed and today we offer ‘live’ tutorials online rather than eLearning courses. Need to know why I decided live was better than eLearning? E-mail me at neil.l@thelearningcoach.co.uk or comment here and I will happily get into that discussion.

For many years we had full classrooms every month, we ran courses in our office suite and in fabulous places like Williams F1.

The recent financial strain put on business by the world’s financial mess saw a downturn last year of budget available to attend such learning events as many companies cut back training in huge swathes. Try as a training person to tell companies that this is short sighted as the skill level will not be there when business returns has been an uphill struggle as many of you know full well. Todays offering can be found at http://www.thelearningcoach.co.uk/tutorials.html

Along came rapid development tools, with them the latest in the long line of buzzwords and gizmos, with the promise of quickly developed eLearning to solve all your problems.

What this has generated is a new generation of eLearning developers who have coined the title of Instructional Designer with very little Instructional Design knowledge. If you think that an Instructional Designer is a person who creates eLearning by converting ppt slides to online delivery with a few few clicks in a software program, then unfortunately, through no fault of your own,  you may fall into this category.

For me an Instructional Designer is exactly as it is defined in Wikipedia.

“Instructional Design, also called Instructional Systems Design (ISD) is the practice of creating “instructional experiences which make the acquisition of knowledge and skill more efficient, effective, and appealing.” The process consists broadly of determining the current state and needs of the learner, defining the end goal of instruction, and creating some “intervention” to assist in the transition. Ideally the process is informed by pedagogically (process of teaching) and andragogically (adult learning) tested theories of learning and may take place in student-only, teacher-led or community-based settings.”

If you want to create learning that engages, teaches, informs, excites, empowers and changes behaviours, you need to know more about instructional design, assessment design, screen design and layout, building lesson plans, understanding the psychology of what the learner wants, needs and will do.

As 2013 begins to see a vast increase in business activity, there is no time like now for those calling themselves Instructional Designers to gain the skills they really require to make these changes happen.

Tin Can: Caution may make aggravated reading!

So what’s all the fuss about? You think I am going to tell you that you need a new management system or some expensive upgrade to the one you already have? No, actually I am not, unless of course you care about the work you are doing as a learning professional.

For all the years I have been involved with eLearning we have skirted around the truth, which is that the vendor has always failed to deliver what he promised. Before the web we had CBT and we told our clients that we had this fantastic system to deliver training at a fraction of the cost. No, not true. In those days, the cost was about $25-40k for an hour of learning.  Historically when we look back and see how many people actually attended this learning, and if we are honest to ask ourselves how many came away with a changed behaviour, we have to own up and say it was pretty expensive and the delegate did not have a very good time!  That early CBT was bordering on awful.

Since then we have seen many new promises with something new being offered with a latest buzzword every year or so. 15 years’ worth!

So why would I expect you to believe me when I tell you that the latest, newest, biggest, greatest, most spectacular thing to come out of eLearning is happening around you right now? Well, you believed all the other ideas, so why would you not!

But to be truthful, I am not a vendor, I have no product to offer and like you I have been duped too. However, this latest and greatest is so exciting I am struggling to contain myself.

For me it began back in about 1994, when I started to import the first systems we called authoring tools from the USA to Europe. I got screwed a couple of times on the way by greedy manufacturers and took the decision a few years ago to drop the sale of all product, to concentrate on being a knowledgeable consultant in the industry with many years of experience. I dedicated myself to the design of learning and helping other people understand how to create great learning. I made a name for myself along the way as one who is not scared to say it as I see it and who will work to break as many rules as possible to ensure success for the learner.  I think you may have already got that idea.

Once we moved online and the web learning we know became known as eLearning (C.2000), the new game in town was the management system. It was simple in the early days; it told us who did what and when, and if we gave them a test, we knew whether  they had passed or failed.

 So what happened? We gave it to the DOD and we created a behemoth of a system that tells us everything and nothing.  We actually can store who clicked what, how long it took, capture metatags of information including…..  Well. including what? If the truth be told, we still only care about who did what, and when, and if they passed or failed. By default we can tell who didn’t do what!! A whole set of useless numbers that gives us a history in metrics.

The challenge was, and is, how can we make this better? How can we get some data that tells us something we can use?  OK, I hear you screaming we can use these metrics, we can show our boss how well we did, that we got all 1500 staff through a course and we ticked the boxes. If this is you, please stop calling yourself a learning professional–you don’t deserve the title!

What we need is a way to see who does course B after being prompted to do so by course Z.  We need to watch where people go and the decisions they make, what prompted those decisions and the consequences of those decisions.  We need to see who goes where after our course, what makes them decide to do so. And we need to see if there are patterns of groups of employees all doing the same and decide if we need to change these patterns to create a change in behaviour.

 We need to create material not called a course–I call it an Environment–one that mimics our workplace where people can test their ideas in safe areas and see the consequences of their behaviour. We need to understand that courses go from A-Z and we need to discard that idea [which idea?] and replace it with a free-form flow [?] of information and decision-making. But to do this we need to be able to watch the paths the user takes, where they go, from which point to which and understand where they are likely to go next.

Pipe dream? No reality!  Hail ‘The Experience API’ project named Tin Can. Created by the very people who created the behemoth SCORM, but this time they got it right straight out of the gate. Here is a system with few rules, other than those you build. Databases that will collate whatever you throw at them and redesign themselves itself to suit. It’s just data; collate enough and you will have ‘Big Data’. Learn how to understand the data and the Holy Grail of learning takes a step closer to you.

How does this work? Well, ask 10 designers who understand XAPI and you will get 10 answers. But the bare bones are that at points decided by you, a set of data called a statement is sent to the database in XML. This data contains a set of verbs (that you designed) and the data that goes with them. Collate enough of these and you will begin to see patterns.  The term is Analytics.

Amazon is pretty good at recommending books and items to buy based of this type of analytics. Based on who you are and what you have done before, they can predict what you are likely to buy next. So, using the same type of data and based upon who you are, what your role is and what learning you already undertook and the decisions you made whilst doing that learning, we should be able to predict what you are going to next. If that prediction says you are about to make a mistake that is going to be costly to our organisation, we can intervene—

a good old intervention by a training professional who is going to create better value by changing your behaviour.

Simple to implement? No, not at all. To do so, you are going to need a new set of talents in designing learning content that creates the data you know you can use and want and need.  Reuben Tozman said, “SCORM technology tells us here is the data we collect and here’s how to build web content that spits that data into our buckets. Tin Can is, what data points do you want to create, how do you want to collect that data and you decide how that data is meaningful.”

If that is not an exciting prospect in the world of learning, then you are never going to hear one. This is not a pipe dream; it is real. During 2013 it will be at every conference you attend, you will find it in all the magazines and in all the blogs and forums.  Get on board early; understand what is coming and how the design of your learning is about to have the biggest shake up since you got that job.

Check out my sites http://www.neillasher.com http://www.thelearningcoach.com

2013 the year to get truly proactive with learning

I decided that 2013 is going to be a year where I concentrate on blogging properly. Continue to curate great stuff via Twitter @neillasher, and generally turn up the steam on telling it as it is!

I have not posted since August last year on my own site but have posted on many others. So the time has come to right this wrong. I will transfer some of my better posts from other sites and start to post lots of new stuff..

What else is happening this year?

Here is my list of things for you to watch out for.

• The eXperience API (Tin Can).
• My new live on line mentoring network (more news when it’s launched)
• Live on line courses broken into smaller packages. No longer will you have to attend a two day course to lear about eLearning, mLearning and Learning design, you will be able to attend from the comfort of your own office or home.
• Watch out for some new collaboration systems I will be talking about.
• Deliver learning to the mobile device using simple Text and Voice systems.

It’s going to be an exciting 2013… watch this space…

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Well it’s been two months since I blogged. Why? For the last two months I have been working on the London Olympics. Specifically I have been working contracted to LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games) as a Field of Play Group Leader in the Modern Pentathlon team.

We delivered one hell of an amazing event, it was great over the last weekend of the games to get texts during the modern pentathlon to say, ‘just seen you on TV’. That was not the plan of course but some close friends and my kids were all watching carefully. During two months I created and read more spreadsheets that in the last 20 years, all for one weekend of sport!

It’s been some great highs and lows over the last two months, made some great friends and probably upset one or two along the way, oh well, those who know me know I don’t suffer fools lightly.

I have seen something first hand that I never expected and gained an experience like no other. For the last twenty years I have worked as a trainer delivering interventions both in the classroom and electronically to ‘fix’ many broken attitudes and skills. I have created some amazing events, (none quite the size of the Olympics) but during all that time I have always been on the outside looking in.

The last two months I have worked in a large team from the inside looking out. My experiences and what I have learned I will begin to write about over the next few weeks, but as a taster I can tell you I will be delivering team training in a different manner from today. Check out my new site http://www.neillasher.com

Tonight I meet with all the guys I worked with as TEV’s, training event volunteers for the team leaders of the London Olympics, we are working on collaborating for better team training in organisations.

Watch this space…….

A great day in London

I have not blogged for ages. I think I realised SoMeFat got the better of me.

But the last few weeks have left me with lots to say.

Things like:

Why has it rained so much since they announced a drought in London?

If you have a box of bits and pieces and there is one left, is it a bit or a piece?

Why is there only one monopolies commission?

Has our solar system already begun colliding with andromeda? Anyone seen the sun recently?

All joking aside the contrast from last weekend on the Isle of White on my Yamaha, in tee shirt and leathers sweating buckets in 28 degrees watching the Old Gaffers parade of boats in Yarmouth, to yesterday on Tower Bridge watching the Queens Jubilee Floatilla in about 8 degrees and driving rain was huge.

What an atmosphere in London yesterday. Everyone was friendly, chatty, jovial. I hope this is what we will experience in just a few short weeks when the Olympics roll into town.

Now for two days holiday courtesy of our Queen. Thank You Ma’am.

Reflections from #LSCon 2012

I have had a short week to get my feet back under the desk after a whirlwind trip to Orlando.

Such a great week amongst some of the clever people in our industry, so much to listen to and so much to learn from other’s ideas.

Of course they tweet the same about being with me and listening to my presentations, I just get embarrassed in the normal way.

What was clear in this week and in reflection since leaving the hot sun in Florida is that there are a number of interesting changes taking place across the world in T&D. The first is that T&D is on it’s very last legs in large corporations. If you are still working in a department with this name or have a business title of L&D Manager, get ready as sweeping changes will knock you off your feet if you are not ready.

The changes are a distinct move towards the Business Performance Department, delivering a set of technologies that include training where required but more of acquiring and rolling out technology that assist your workers to make more money for the organisation. The talk in the back rooms and of course on the backchannel were about revenue and profitability, not about good LMS scores or completion rates. Jay Cross almost had it right last year with ‘Work Smarter’ concept but I think in times of economic downturn that we are all experiencing, Work Leaner may have been a better term. But I take my hat off to Jay as he was ahead of the game on this one.

Those who understand business and how to generate higher revenue through capability and capable staff certainly have the edge. (Check out my paper i2 that was launched at #LSCon which aims to replace ROI with an Incapabiity Index. Paper available at http://www.thelearningcoach.co.uk/media.html)

The tools being spoken of were more of performance support, remember how that came and went, it was just too early and is making a huge comeback. Other technologies in the frame are those that provide a social lounge for the workforce to talk about what is important to them, where they can dip in and out learning materials and use new concepts like IVR (see http://www.phone2know.com) to deliver contextual information in numerous ways.

New products were in the expo to deliver to mobile devices, the imminent product from Articulate, Storyline, is the first of a new breed of tools to help deliver this type of learning. I have used the beta of this product, the latest version includes mobile and html5, very exciting prospects for the future.

The second big thing to come out of #LSCon was the concept of Conversation in learning. I was not the only person presenting or talking of this. Conversation in communication is key to creating a platform where people can learn. The presentation I made ‘Conversational Learning’ is available to watch in a cut down form from http://bit.ly/HesHMt

I have come home very enthused about this coming year. I have launched a great service at Phone2Know using the latest technologies to add conversation to learning, eLearning, mLearning and delivered as an addition to face to face training. Some cool concepts that will grow over the coming months.

The next conference I attend is Congreso de Recursos Humanos in Mexico City later this month http://www.congresorh.com.mx/ where I will be presenting what can be achieved using conversation and mobile learning. Then I am onto mLearnCon in San Jose for June to host the Mobile Tools and Tech Stage. By this time we should be seeing some very cool additions to the mobile scene.

Conversation as a way of learning

If you like me are on your way to Orlando for #LSCon, then you may want to look up my session 513 on Conversational Learning.

For someone to learn there has to be a behaviour change or a new behaviour to be learned (Freud and Yeun). Social media tools are not all cutting it to deliver the correct level of conversation to make these changes. They are merely a carrier for information. How can we change this?

This session will explore what a conversation is, how we learn from it, the four dimensions of the way we use conversation in learning and some example of a real live conversation inside an electronic learning course using IVR systems from Phone2Know, http://www.phone2know.com

Come and find out what we need to do to get conversation back on the table and let’s stop fooling ourselves that all social media tools are a way of learning.

Come to session 513, let’s talk!