Too Much Information or a Skills Gap

Wesley Fryer discusses How are you dealing with TMI? (Too Much Information)  (found via Stephen Downes).  Wesley points us to a post by Kevin Washburn “TMI! Information Overload and Learning.” where Kevin points out:

TMI floods the brain with data, preventing comprehension and elaboration, and thus, preventing learning. Jonah Lehrer suggests the danger of too much information is “it can actually interfere with understanding.” Why? Because the brain has a do-it-yourself attitude toward learning.

Wes also asks us to consider:

 current visual list of education applications from the website “All My Favs.” I’m overwhelmed just looking at these choices!

 

This is similar to the list of Web 2.0 tools that I often use in my presentations.

All of these represent potential metacognitive tools and methods.  Life was simple 25 years ago.  We knew how to use the card catalog, journal indices, microfiche readers.  We had quarters in our pocket for the Xerox machine.  We knew how to use Interlibrary Loan.  We knew how to take notes.

It's a lot more complicated these days.

And I think that we need to recognize that it's more than the "Too Much Information" aspect of the issue.  It's really that we need to adapt to new methods and tools.  It's a big skills, knowledge, performance gap – see Work Skills Keeping Up.  And I personally believe that it's a big mistake to Not Prepare Workers for Web 2.0.  It's why I created Work Literacy about a year ago.

Wes has some specific suggestions in his post for how to deal with TMI.

I try to address this through posts such as:

• Tool Set
• LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers
• Top-Down Strategy
• Better Memory
• Information Radar
• Processing Pages with Links
• Networks and Learning Communities
• Collaborate
• Twitter as Personal Work and Learning Tool
• Search

I look forward to collaborating on this very important topic.

Future of the Business of Learning

As part of preparing for the July 23 free online session on the Future of the Business of Learning, I've had a bunch of conversations with CLOs/VP Learning, CEOs of Training Companies, Marketing and Sales Consultants to Training Companies, Industry Analysts, Software and Services Vendors.

I am really looking forward to July 23 when we come together to discuss this. It's going to be interesting. There are some real nuggets that I'm finding that you will hear about. I would highly encourage you to join in and book the day. If nothing else, seeing the Intuit case study to think through and discuss outsourcing to your customers and rethinking return on training investment.

Register Here

There's a bit more detail on the particular sessions via the link above. I will announce the panelists in a day or two.

I felt compelled to capture a few thoughts as I've been having these conversations:

Tough Times - No One Jumping

Statistics are made real when you run into actual examples. For example, 10% unemployment doesn't always translate. Having friends or family lose their job hits home.

When you talk to someone who's training business is off 20-30%, it hits home. Imagine your paycheck getting cut 25%. Actually, if you are a smaller training company, it's worse than that. You likely are now scraping by with virtually zero paycheck. And possibly incurring debt.

At the same time, while we all know this is tough times from training, no one I've talked to is on the ledge ready to jump. Instead, I think that everyone recognizes that there's always going to be need for skill development. And overall, learning is more important than ever.

Mature or Declining Industry?

When I first introduced this topic, I probably should not have used an analogy between publishing and training. No one knows for sure what the total spend on training (using formal learning methods) will be in the future. Will it overall go up a lot? Down a lot? Stay relatively the same? Training is definitely in much better position than publishers who relied on advertising dollars.

I personally believe that the overall market for training using formal learning models is going to be on a long, slow downward trend. We are currently experiencing a big drop (similar to the drop in 2001). Training never quite recovered from the 2001 drop. And likely after this drop, we won't quite recover again.

My guess is that even the most optimistic person sees a relatively modest growth percentage and pessimists probably line up with me.

But what I find is that anytime I say that Training (using Formal Learning Models) might be transitioning into a relatively flat or declining industry – people hear - "Training is Dead." (see Long Live? for an example).

So, please help:

How can I effectively explain that training might be a mature or declining industry and still keep folks listening?

One thing I have tried to do is use an analogy. On a phone call the other day, I used the unfortunately analogy of the railroads. At one point railroads were in hyper growth mode, then they matured and consolidated. Then they were supplanted by cars, trucking and airlines as other forms of transportation. I don't think that any of the railroads managed to really transition themselves into other forms of transportation. It's a classic example of the innovator's dilemma (see The Innovator's Dilemma of Learning). Of course there are still railroads.

This did not go over well. Partly it was that there was a funny moment when I realized how tough things were for the auto and airlines. But also, no one wants to see themselves as the railroads.

Differentiation and Innovation Opportunities

No matter your take on the overall training spend, there's clearly lots of differentiation and innovation opportunities. A lot of what I've been hearing is about successful differentiation in the marketplace. Training companies and internal training organizations who focus on things that matter to organizations or who have offerings that are more than content seem to be having a better time of it.

There's also some incredible innovation going on as well. The Intuit example that will be presented and the implications of it for internal and external training organizations is going to be worth the entire time investment.

Tough Questions – Tougher Answers

I hope you won't come on July 23 expecting easy answers. The core question that I asked:

While training as a publisher of courses and courseware faces an increasingly challenging market, what other things can learning businesses successfully sell to internal or external customers?

is definitely a tough question. ISA did a session in March looking at a very similar question and it's clear there are no easy answers.

A big part of what makes these questions tough was beautifully captured by Tom McKee, CEO of Ken Blanchard,

You can't sell what people aren't willing to buy.

Many of our internal customers are simply not ready to buy solutions that look like something more than courses and courseware. There are exceptions and definitely opportunities for innovation. But realistically, a lot of what we will be talking about is what organizations should be doing today to be in position for the future.

This is going to be fun, hope you will join the conversation.

LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers

I do a lot of presentations where one of the topics is how to use LinkedIn more effectively as part of your knowledge work. In most cases, I will ask for a show of hands:

• How many of you have a LinkedIn Account? - Generally 50-70%.
• How many of you actively use LinkedIn? – Generally down to 10%.
• How many of you get really high value from LinkedIn? - Now down to 2-5%

I am continually surprised by this result (Getting Value from LinkedIn). I can't remember how I could get things done without LinkedIn. And I consider knowing how to effectively use LinkedIn to be a core Work Literacy.

I wanted to collect together some of the resources I've found that can help you get more out of LinkedIn.

And, don't forget to look at my LinkedIn Connection Approach Rethought. Consider whether it makes sense for you to introduce yourself and connect via LinkedIn.

Based on a comment I just received, if you only have time for one resource - visit:

• LinkedIn for Finding Expertise

It shows the basics of what a lot of this is about.LinkedIn Basics

• Tips on using LinkedIn
• The Unofficial LinkedIn User's Guide for Executives and Professionals
• LinkedIn Tips
• 10 Ways to Use LinkedIn
• LinkedIn Tips and Tweaks: Do More with your LinkedIn Account
• 20 Ways to Use LinkedIn Productively
• Making Your LinkedIn Business Network Pay Dividends
• Ten Etiquette Tips for LinkedIn
• LinkedIn Learning Center
• LinkedIn How-Tos
• The Social Media Starter Kit: LinkedIn
• How to Use LinkedIn
• 10 Part Series: Can LinkedIn Work for You?
• Top 10 mistakes people make on LinkedIn
• 7 more things to avoid on LinkedIn

Leveraging LinkedIn

• Leveraging Networks is Key Skill
• Searching for Expertise - LinkedIn Answers
• LinkedIn for Finding Expertise
• Crowdsourcing in the Small
• Networks and Communities
• LinkedIn - Prospecting No - Conversation Yes
• Social Grid Follow-up
• Expert Level Answers via Social Networks
• Secret for Networking at Events – Prenetworking
• Pre-network with LinkedIn
  

  
  

Profiles, Recommendations and Network Building

• Grow Your Network While You Don’t Need It
• Make Your LinkedIn Profile Work for You
• Your Reputation: Create a Permalink
• Growing Your Network Online
• Approach to LinkedIn Connections
• LinkedIn Facebook Twitter - Different Connection Style
• Write Your LinkedIn Profile for Your Future
• LinkedIn as Cult Builder
• Top 3 Ways to Add LinkedIn Connections and Why You Should Care
• Is Your Networking Profile Up to Date?
• LinkedIn PR | Top 10 Ways to Become a Subject
• Profile Photos
• Introducting Your Network to Each Other
• How My Blog Turbo Powers My LinkedIn Connections
• Minding Your Networking Manners with Socialminder
• Guy Kawasaki's profile makeover: Before and After
• Writing great recommendations
• Elements of a Good LinkedIn Recommendation
• Are You Missing An Opportunity With Your LinkedIn Tag Line?

Using LinkedIn For Travel and Meetings

• Breaking the Ice at a Meeting with LinkedIn
• Using LinkedIn to Fill Out Your Business Trip
• Using LinkedIn for Travel
• Connecting with People in Your Network When Traveling
• Secret for Networking at Events – Prenetworking
• Pre-network with LinkedIn
  

  
  

Groups on LinkedIn

• 5 ways to get more from your LinkedIn Groups
• 5 Tips for Creating, Promoting and Managing a LinkedIn Group
• What are They Talking About? (LinkedIn e-Learning Groups) – These are some of the learning focused groups on LinkedIn.
• Directory of Social Networks for Learning Professionals – Includes learning networks that are outside LinkedIn as well.
• Learning Communities List – Also learning communities including some LinkedIn groups.

Other Resources

• Linked Intelligence
• The Official LinkedIn Blog
• The Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn
• Networlding
• Alltop LinkedIn

Long Tail Blogging is Dying?

Just read an article in the Guardian The long tail of blogging is dying (Found via Donald Clark). 

But recently – over the past six months – a new trend: fewer blogs with links, and fewer with any contextual comment. Some weeks, apart from the splogs, there would be hardly anything. I didn't think we'd suddenly become dull.

He points to backup evidence of this from a NYT article and based on

Technorati's 2008 survey of the state of the blogosphere, which found that only 7.4m out of the 133m blogs it tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. As the New York Times put it, "that translates to 95% of blogs being essentially abandoned".

I don't doubt that a lot of blogs are started and abandoned.  People change their focus.  Lives get busy.  Blogging definitely takes work.

I have a limited view of blogging, but I do get to see quite a bit because of Browse My Stuff.

What about eLearning blogs?

Because of eLearning Learning, I track eLearning blogs closely.

When I go back and look at: More eLearning Bloggers – many of the new bloggers stopped blogging soon after.  They had the experience and then stopped.  This somewhat supports the Technorati numbers.

While there are these abandoned blogs, overall I believe there's been a nice growth of eLearning blogs from a wider variety of sources over the past few years. 

When I first started blogging in 2006, it seemed like all the bloggers were exactly the same people who spoke at conferences.  Now, there are more practitioner blogs .  And there are more good quality vendor blogs.  I remember asking Product Vendor Blogs - Where are They? Now I find quite a few on eLearning Learning.  And the analysts have joined in (Brandon Hall and Bersin have blogs).

I'm sure that this will continue to change, but I would question the notion that long tail blogging is dying.

Possible Reasons for the Guardian Drop Off

Over the past three years, I've certainly noticed that while I read (actually skim dive skim) through a lot of blogs, I find I spend less and less time on mainstream publications.  They simply are too general in most cases.  I used to read the Guardian all the time.  Now, I only saw this article because of Donald Clark's mention. 

I do think that some of the limited kinds of blog posts that are essentially – here's an interesting article – has moved to twitter or other status updates.  It's not worth a blog post if that's all you are going to say.

And, honestly, I'd much rather engage in a discussion with a blogger than with a mainstream publication that will never engage back.

Twitter Not a Good Substitute

I personally don't think that Twitter is a good replacement for blogging as learning tool.   It's great for quick sharing.  And quick, limited conversations.  Deeper discussion requires blogging. 

You can find a lot more thoughts around blogging via my post:

Top Ten Reasons To Blog and Top Ten Not to Blog

When Do Learning Games Make Business Sense?

T+D Blog - Serious Gaming in the Workplace asks the question:

Is serious gaming being taken seriously in your workplace?

It is time to change the perception of "gaming" among CEOs and other corporate executives. It is a valuable learning tool that is taking too long to become a mainstream part of everyday learning.

However, I've been wondering for long time about when the added costs of building games really pays off.  Last year in Training Method Trends I showed some data from the eLearning Guild that had games and simulations decreasing as a modality.  My guess is that right now with pressure on training budgets, there's significant pressure on spending on games.

 

The Upside Learning (disclosure) white paper Do You Need Games In Your eLearning Mix? (see also their great blog post - Top 100 Learning Game Resources) of course comes out and tells us that different kinds of games make sense based on different learning needs and that there's a place for them.

I concur that there's pretty significant backing that game-based learning results in better learning transfer rates. 

But transfer does not equal ROI.  I've done some initial search for back-up that the added cost of developing learning games is worth the cost, and I've really not come up with much of anything.  There are some great anecdotal examples, but the real question is up-front:

When is it worth the added cost to turn a learning experience into a game?  And how do we know that going in?

The justification is often a bit hard.  There's an emotional response among some buyers that games equals waste.  But even beyond overcoming that challenge, I see it as a bit hard to go from additional transfer angle.  Couldn't we get transfer using another approach at a lower total cost?  Are we trying to justify in additional seat time that learners would spend if it wasn't a game?  Is it true that seat time is less for the same transfer for games?

This relates to the question of the Business of Learning.  I'm not sure that by creating games you really are going to be able to sell enough additional product or create enough added value that it justifies the additional expenditure.

What's the business rationale for spending on games?