I really resonate with the evidence-based approach of ISPI and the people and the values. And yet, there is a sad frustration that ISPI continues to struggle. They haven’t figured out how to instigate new ideas and bring in new blood — and still maintain the rigor.

Maybe someday we could brainstorm what an ideal trade association would look like…For example, I just went to the SIOP conference and found a nice 50-50 split between researchers (academics) and practitioners. Almost all PhD’s or students. It was fantastic!!

The systematic, data-driven, performance-focused approach that ISPI advocates has always distinguished them, in my mind, from more ‘training-centric’ points of view that I saw in other associations.

I’ve never completely recovered from Joe Harless’s description of a highly successful training program (people learned more skills, at a higher level of competence, in half the time) that was found to have almost no useful impact on the job–because the skills involved weren’t important.

Not that that would ever happen with, you know, online learning or an immersive game.

I do think there’s sometimes an academic bias, sometimes an old-hand bias, and sometimes just plain inertia at work. I recall one well-regarded ISPI person saying that email was what he and most of his senior-practitioner colleagues were comfortable with–this as a way of explaining why discussion boards or RSS feeds would be of no interest.

On the other hand, I appreciate the desire for a rationale behind the approach someone advocates. Claude Lineberry, a former ISPI president, had a two-sentence contribution in a round of 99-second presentations:

Data are plural.
By the way, where are your damned data?

What Claude was asking is, “Where’s the evidence for your statement?”