I stumbled on the ASTD State of The Industry Report 2011 yesterday – find it here.

The title proudly claims “Increased Commitment to Workplace Learning” and that is indeed heartening to see. Not just because it means constant business for us but also because it means the top bosses recognize the importance of workplace learning more that they did a couple of decades back. It was commonplace to find training budgets be the first ones to slashed when downturn hits.

Some highlights from the report:

- The average direct expenditure per employee increased from $1,081 ($1,098 inflation adjusted) in 2009 to $1,228 in 2010.

- The leading content area for the consolidated group is management and supervisory learning. Manager and supervisory content also registered the greatest percentage increase change, going from 10.4 percent in 2009 to 12.8 percent of the content delivered in 2010.

- Instructor-led classroom delivery continues to be the most widely used delivery method. About 70 percent (a 3 percent increase from 2009) of all training is delivered in the classroom-both online and live-and 60 percent of that is delivered by live instruction.

- In 2010, technology-based delivery declined overall for the consolidated group, from 36.3 percent in 2009 to 29.1 percent in 2010.The 2010 decline in the total amount of content delivered via technology by organizations in the consolidated group is atypical of previous years’ results and is a trend that we do not expect to continue over time.

- ASTD’s research demonstrates that leading-edge L&D departments incorporate more technology components and processes than their lesser performing counterparts.

Even though some large organizations have started using mobile technology to empower their workforce, for most others the question still remains – how do we actually use it in the workplace? Training departments are unsure how to design, develop and implement a successful mLearning strategy that works for their organizations.

In a bid to find out what the organizations are really thinking and planning around mobile learning, we have initiated a short survey. This survey is being carried out in conjunction with our survey at the World of Learning Conference and Exhibition 2011, where we will be participating on 27th and 28th of this month. The cumulative results of these surveys (along with the survey data from our previous events – ASTD ICE 2011 and mLearnCon 2011) will be published in a report. To get a FREE copy of this report, participate in the survey now.

Note: The Survey is now closed. Thank you for participating in our survey. A free copy of this report will be sent to all the participants shortly.

“The real problems in the office are the M&Ms” – managers and meetings make employees unproductive.

All the more reason for eLearning, anytime, anywhere; let people decide what’s appropriate to learn and when to learn it. You can’t do that with scheduled training.

Check it out:

I’m of the opinion that there are 3 primary types of usage for mobile devices in the context of learning.

1. Used as a Part of the Blend
Mobile devices are perfect to add to a blend in your training program. Regardless of whether it’s a pre-class micro-course (5 -10 min) or a post class follow-up in the form of summaries, scenarios that help learner apply some of what they learnt; quizzes (you can even track scores if you wish), mobile devices work perfectly well. You could create native or web apps or simply deliver them through an LMS that’s mobile compatible. To make it even simpler and easy to access the links can be sent over sms. We’re well aware that learners probably don’t retain much 2-3 days after the training program – especially in the absence of an opportunity to apply what they have learnt right away. Mobile device based follow-up could increase retention and aid application of knowledge and skills.

2. Device to Access Information
As adults learning happens most often when we are stuck with a problem or have made a mistake. So it’s not surprising that our mind is most receptive to new information & willing to learn in those moments. Mobiles are excellent devices to help retrieve information like ‘how to’ manuals or videos, or simply search for answers on Google or the company’s intranet which in itself is fast turning into a social environment. I believe this has great potential and needs to be exploited by organizations by creating ecosystems that let their staff learn from each other – by providing the ability to access information in moments of need.

3. Performance Support Agents
The link between training and performance is long winded and most often than not unclear. Many an attempt at proving the ROI of training programs have been misplaced financial calculations at best, as they don’t really take into account the real impact a training program makes in contributing to business performance.  Most business leaders understand this fact. We believe performance support mobile applications are a great tool to have on your employees’ phones. This could range from simple assistance with calculators or complex procedural information that helps makes decisions, all using smart-phone applications. The link between performance support aids and the performance itself is very often direct and the results are immediate.

The six shifts they talk about:

1. The Red Queen was optimistic – The red queen in Through the Looking-Glass said – “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” However as it turns out we are running ever faster but still losing ground. The authors claim that despite long-term increase in labor productivity, the average return on assets of US companies have steadily fallen to almost a quarter of what it was in 1965.
2. Value ain’t where it used to be – The source of value creation is changing from stocks to flows of knowledge and the means of value creation from push to pull.
3. Asia is the new global center of innovation – Westerners generally have a narrow view of innovation, limiting it to breakthrough technology and product innovations. There’s a need to expand beyond product, process, and management innovation to institutional innovation.
4. The collaboration curve supplants the experience curve – As collaborative working comes of age, we may, for the first time, have an opportunity to turn diminishing returns performance improvement into increasing returns. The World of Warcraft game is a wonderful example of this.
5. The “Dilbert Paradox” holds the key – CEOs cite talent as their number one priority, yet Dilbert cartoons, which actually depict our workplaces suggest otherwise, are very popular suggesting that people find the actual workplaces are closer to what Dilbert depicts. Authors believe the paradox arises as CEOs focus on hiring and retaining the best talent but not on developing them.
6. Passion is everything – Passion drives the questing disposition that is essential to employee performance as they react to the inevitable unexpected challenges today’s work environment presents. The authors’ survey shows that just 20% people in organizations think they are passionate about their work. And this ratio is lower in larger organizations.

The article has many embedded links that support authors’ claims and connect to equally interesting articles. You should read the whole article to get a complete picture.

In a nutshell the ones mentioned above are very important trends that we need to take note of and try structure our organizations around.  Easier said than done but there’s no alternative.

Is Training Changing?

The article has a strong view, advising us to take a long, hard look at how we manage our organizations’ structures, processes, talent, and collaboration. Even though the pace of change within training is not rapid as of now, but it will only increase from here

I expect the future of training to be shaped sharply by the above listed trends and the advancements in learning technology itself. There is much for business leaders to focus on, and training is one of the important parts of the matrix. Training needs to call for a redefinition of its purpose, process, and structure. Mobile Learning and Social Learning will perhaps be the two biggest elements of an individual’s personal learning environment in the future and both of these only further emphasize the power of pull.

I was there to meet an existing client and some new prospects about their needs around custom eLearning development. Our partner in Saudi Arabia has been present there for quite some time selling catalog courses. With them I had an opportunity to meet clients in varied domains – Banking, Utilities, Energy, Healthcare & Telecom. I must say I am pleasantly surprised at the potential for workplace eLearning in Saudi Arabia.

Some take away from my trip:

1. Most large companies have budgets for eLearning. Many are already doing eLearning and some of them like Saudi Aramco (here’s a 2006 presentation from Mr. Ken Huffman Coordinator,  Corporate Integrated Learning Services, Saudi Aramco)  have been doing this for a long time. Most others have experience with some authoring tool or catalog courses.
2. The top management is well informed about eLearning and its possibilities. They are looking for ways to enhance their initiatives with the latest that’s available in the world.
3. The average age of workforce is low. Most senior people I met are actually very young.
4. Use of mobile phones is widespread. Most people carry two phones. However, data access is costly.
5. Arabic language development is a key requirement in most of the companies. Very few are comfortable with just English language courses.
6. There is significant American and British presence in senior managements in some companies, makes for a different cultural mix to handle.
7. Hierarchy is to be respected and things may move slowly when it comes to decision making.
8. Business is based on relationships. Pretty much like anywhere else in the world.

The Saudi eLearning market was projected to reach $125 million by 2008 growing at 33% in the previous 5 years. I’m not sure if that has really happened – I couldn’t find any current reports about the current market size. Earlier this month I had mentioned an Ambient Insight report, which projected growth rates in various regions for the period 2009-2014. That report pegs the growth rate in whole of Middle East at just 8% making it one of the slower growth regions.  I assume the Saudi is one of the fastest growing within the whole of Middle East. The education market there seems to have taken a lead over the workplace eLearning market helped along primarily by the huge amount of government funding. Here’s a great post from Tony Bates on eLearning in education sector in Saudi Arabia. It also gives a good peep into the male female ‘divide’ one would find in the Saudi society.

Teaching through the wall
Source: e-learning and distance education resources by Tony Bates

As an industry, eLearning has witnessed significant growth over the past years. Then the recession hit and not only did it disrupt the continuity of growth and momentum in the industry, but as I see it, even when fading away it poses another threat to eLearning industry. I will explain how.

If the only thing the last 15 months or more of the cruel downturn has taught more companies than anything else, it is the need to be cautious on cash (and costs) front. Tremendous pressures were put on companies to save on costs (and continue even now, while a little milder) and more so to generate more value at the same cost. These pressures led organizations to react in varied ways – downsizing, rightsizing, blanket budget cuts, even training cost cutting, across the board salary revisions, etc. On one hand while the pressure to reduce costs kept on increasing and still is a reality, on the other there was also a burning need to upskill and reskill employees to generate more value and productivity.

This mix of cost pressure and need to still keep an eye on training to survive and grow beyond the recession phase, in my belief, started the second wave of adoption of eLearning. Over the past few years, as the industry was maturing, the focus was slowly, but firmly, moving towards producing learning solutions that impact performance and dollar numbers, this second wave could have a pull-back effect, potentially.

In the last few months (6 to 9 months) we (as a solutions provider) have seen an increase in inquiries focused on adopting eLearning primarily to compensate for the budget cuts and to reduce overall training costs. This is where my concern stems from. There are cases where the customers are looking for something quick, dirty and of course inexpensive. That these cases are increasing in number is a matter of concern, primarily for two reasons:

1. If such demand keeps increasing (and I believe as effects of the recession continue to get milder it will) there could be a surge in solutions which are good from a cost perspective but not from a ‘learning’ perspective. This could undermine or distract from the progress and advancements the industry is making in coming out with innovation and solutions to enhance learning in self-paced environments.
2. As more such solutions sell it would take another level of effort to evangelize and educate customers on the true value and potential of eLearning. This seems like going back a few good years and that isn’t good.

While I am confident that the recession is definitely proving and will continue to prove a booster in terms of revenue growth for learning solutions providers, I am also worried that it has the potential to erode the true value to some extent.

The bright side is that more companies are now able to produce excellent quality eLearning at costs lower than before and will still be able to offer good value at low cost striking the right balance. However a challenge still remains on the other front. How big this challenge will be only time can tell. As a company that provides high quality solutions we are pushing Innovation and development to ensure that we don’t fall into the trap (for the lack of a better word).

I’d love to hear more about this and how others feel about this situation. I’d really like to hear and conclude (hopefully) that most of my concerns are unfounded.

As a personal learning tool, Twitter is great but it’s a public platform and what you share on it is available to everyone, some organizations may need tools which can be installed behind their firewalls (Laconica, Yonkly) or that is available as a secure private service (Yammer). All these tools have functionality that’s similar to Twitter.

Organizations are using these tools for workplace learning and performance support. Here’s what for:

1. Broadcasting information – with microblogging information sharing can happen in the real time and anyone make contribution unlike discussion boards or emails. To make all this simple the organizations are integrating these tools into their eLearning courses/LMS.

2. Performance support – using microblogging organizations can provide real-time performance support with quick tips and links to resources [like pdf files, quizzes, YouTube videos, flickr/picasa photos etc.]. Microblogging is great for just-in-time support.

3. Expert Guidance – by using microblogging tools employees can follow SMEs or tutors after the training to explore more about that topic. Lists of all such experts can be created and integrated within the learning portal. Learners can follow lists or some individuals.

4. Live Discussion Forums – microblogging is also useful for live discussions. You can schedule it at a particular time and decide on a unique hashtag for the session. People can share their ideas/thoughts and get to know differing points of views. It usually generates a large repository of ideas, opinions and links. One can take time to reflect on them later. In the learning community #lrnchat is one such example of a Twitter discussion forum.

5. Knowledge Repository – the search feature of microblogging tools can be used to extract information anytime. You can refer back to your own updates/messages, search on a topic and get pointed information. If you know of an expert on that subject/topic, you can use that too in your search.

6. Back Channel - the workplace can also use microblogging as a back channel for live training webcasts to track the user’s responses, ask questions or to share any related information. These tools can also be integrated within live webcasts too.

Who is using it?

Qualcomm – here is a case study [slide share presentation] on how Qualcomm has used Micro-blogging for learning –

Océ – Here is another example explaining how Océ has used microblogging in performance support and knowledge sharing.

If you are interested in using Twitter in classroom here’s a great video on how to do it:

So what is Buzz – simply put it’s a personal aggregator that is coupled to your Gmail account. Buzz is to email what Wave will eventually be to real-time collaboration around email thread and embedded documents or media.

What does buzz do? Let Google do the explaining –

All in all a very interesting new tool to experiment with, so what could such a tool do for eLearning? Google keeps a lot of these features are in perpetual beta, it’s early days yet and who knows how this new tool will evolve. However, even its current form, it’s a significant reinvention of email.  Buzz has the potential for great impact because a large bulk of individuals in the workplace still use email as the primary communication tool, It will continue to be a very powerful tool used for sharing ideas, information, links, pictures, video and almost any digital format that can be attached and exchanged. The ability to see threaded conversations with people you actually interact with is another key feature of email.

Email was user to user or user to groups of users; the Buzz sharing metaphor is different, more Web 2.0 – allowing one to post messages that can be shared with multiple individuals at a time. Another very cool thing is that the people you “follow” are auto-generated from the people you tend to email. If you communicate with them, they seed your buzz cloud. Over a period of usage, as you comment, like or dislike buzz entries that come from those you follow, the buzz cloud adapts.

Buzz can also aggregate content from other social sharing sites, Flicks, Picasa, Twitter, and YouTube. Buzz emulates or rather brings some features of Google Wave to Gmail. Every Buzz item can be turned into a conversation (like in Friendfeed or Wave.) People can comment on your Buzz, comment on your comments, or @ reply to you as in Twitter.

All in all, these features integrated into a single platform have much potential for eLearning. As a learner, a tool that lets me connect socially and which integrates with a communication service I use everyday has exceptional value.

As a learning designer, I was especially interested in the ‘asymmetric follow’ feature of Buzz as O’Reilly describes it. Buzz implemented this feature and I see it having great value in workplaces. If the system can help me follow interesting individuals in the workplace without actively seeking them out, and based on my activities within Buzz, it essentially builds parts of the network for me. This to me is a key feature and might be worth emulating by learning technology providers.

How do you see Buzz helping in workplace learning?

I am the fence sitter, I’ll be the first to admit that Apple doesn’t just make a product, it creates a user experience and there is much to learn from Jobs and company. On the other hand, Apple’s business practices aren’t the ones I find inspiring. So given that I’m not a lover or baiter of Apple, I’m trying to take an objective view of what the iPad might be able to do for workplace learning. Some or all of these may seem evident, it remains to be seen how successful the iPad will be, and how it will actually end up being used in the workplace.

I see 7 ways in which the iPad will (or should I say may) be used in workplace learning. I considered several other ways too, including augmented reality applications, but the lack of a camera puts a damper on a lot of cool learning possibilities. You’ll also notice that these are mostly extensions of what personal computers and phones do today, functions that a tablet computer replicates and extends. So while the iPad may be cool, the tablet’s functions are anything but revolutionary.

1. e-Books – There is talk that this will be the killer application for the iPad and will position it to take on the Kindle and the Nook. Makes sense, an eBook reader of this size will appeal to workplace users. Electronic performance support aides like manuals, user guides, etc. will make for easy browsing and reference on a tablet device like the iPad.

2. Multimedia Presentations – Conventional elearning courseware is well suited to rendering on a device the size of the iPad. The touch interface will enhance the quality of existing interactions. It will also let elearning designers have a wider interaction palette to design with; newer forms of interaction are sure to result.

3. Games – the iPhone has shown great potential as a handheld game platform, the same would apply to the iPad. The large screen and touch interface lends itself well for the deployment of learning games. The support for WiFi also makes for developing multiplayer learning games that can be used in groups or individually on the same network. These types of games may be effective especially when used for soft skills.

4. Simulations – the hardware that works for games work just as effectively for simulations. As is, the lines between games and simulation are constantly blurring. Again here, the idea that we could develop a multiplayer simulation that demands collaboration from learners to achieve simulation outcomes; encouraging teamwork and emulating the real world where collaboration is necessary for success.

5. High Def Video Libraries – High definition video is already a big part of our lives – YouTube, Vimeo and others support HD, having a handheld device the size of an iPad that’s capable of rendering HD video is special indeed. Workplaces can create their own HD video libraries. Video is effective for learning; customized high definition, anytime video will have a greater idea.

6. Shared Collaborative Environments – Synchronous collaborative environments that you can carry around you should be possible with a device like the iPad. The lack of a camera prevents synchronous video, but that’s a niggle. What might appeal the most is features like a shared whiteboard or note taking spaces. The ability to draw directly with your fingers versus a stylus or mouse is a definite plus for the iPad.

7. Psychomotor Skills – the touch interface capabilities of the iPad are perfectly suited to teaching certain types of psychomotor skills. I can imagine applications for tablet devices that are essentially simulations for teaching graphic design, or technical drawing, or for exploring complex technologies.

While this may seem a bit far-fetched, I’d think that a failure of my ability to articulate my thoughts about the use of the iPad for psychomotor skills.

Now to bash Apple a little, I had some questions that I couldn’t quite find answers to. Knowing the answers might have helped me expand on a list of possible uses in workplace learning.

1. How do you save and transfer documents to the iPad? Can you?
2. Does it support a variety of email systems? Lotus or MS Exchange?
3. Does it support a media service other than iTunes?
4. Does it support multitasking? Can I run more than one program?
5. Will it ever allow the use of Flash? While there’s been a lot of talk both ways, I’d still like it, lots of content out there is in Flash.

Earlier this week Clark Quinn talked of Microcourses wondering if microcourses have any use.

He writes:
“..I also am happy to think of mobile as an augment to formal learning: reactivating knowledge, distributing practice, contextualizing learning, and even performance capture.”

I absolutely agree there. Upside Learning sell 2 minute video courses from Skill-Pill which could best fall in the ‘reactivating knowledge’ category. In the past we’ve developed some HTML based mini-courses that included content pages and quizzes (here is a mini courses sample on Time Management and a Time Management Quiz). However, I don’t really think we will see a lot of learning being delivered that way.

MLearning is best used as a part of a blended learning solution and is suitable for:

♦ Activating knowledge before a classroom (or virtual classroom or even and eLearning session);
♦ Summarizing (after one of those sessions – delivered soon after the session);
♦ Recall (or reactivating knowledge – probably a week or two after the session. This ensures key concepts are revisited and helps in transferring the new knowledge to long term memory – especially for learners who may not get a chance to apply new knowledge immediately after the sessions);
♦ Providing application opportunities (through pop quizzes or learning games on mobile);
♦ Just-in-time search support by letting employees search in company’s knowledge databases (wikis, blogs, forums) using their mobiles.

As comments to Clark’s post Tom Stone argues in favor of use of microcourses as formal learning tools. Jeff Goldman provides some samples (sample 1, sample 2) which I quite like as micro courses. I now see how making a series of this type could well be an option for workplace learning.