Quinnovating

Intensive and Extensive Processing: Making Formal Stickier

23 July 2009 by Clark Leave a Comment

I’ve been thinking around the ways to use social learning to augment formal learning, and it’s bringing interesting things together. The point is that there are things that make formal learning work better, and we want to draw upon them in smart ways.

We have, as I pointed out in the Broken ID series, elements we know lead to better learning: better retention over time, and better transfer to all appropriate situations (and no inappropriate). These things include activating emotional and cognitive relevance, presenting the associated concepts, showing examples that link concept to context, having learners apply concept to context, and wrapping up the experience. Several things, however, facilitate the depth and persistence of the learning: intensive processing, and extensive processing.

By extensive processing, I mean extending the learning experience. I’ve previously talked about how Q2learning has a model where they can wrap a variety of activities together to describe a full competency preparation, including different forms of content, events, feedback, etc. The point is that a single event has a low likelihood of achieving meaningful outcomes. We need reactivation, as massed practice isn’t as effective as spaced practice.

There’s nothing wrong with a F2F session, if you can justify the opportunity & logistical costs, but it’s typically not enough by itself. You’re better off making sure everyone’s on the same page at the start, reactivating later, doing individual assessment and looking for ways to help the individual afterward as well. However, we want to extend the time spent in processing the concept and skills, not necessarily in quantity, but qualitatively from one big mass to many smaller activations. Will Thalheimer does a good job of helping us recognize that breaking up learning works better, but we need to take more concrete advantage of the potential of technology to support this.

The other area is increasing the depth of the processing. There are activities that can be done individually, and some that are facilitated by social as well.

I’ve previously talked about how we can use social tools to facilitate formal learning, but I want to go a little bit deeper. I suggested three forms of processing: personalization, elaboration, and application. For personalization, I have used in the past that learners keep a journal where they have to regularly reflect on how the learning is relevant to them (and a blog is a great tool for this). It occurs to me that there are three good ways to have them do this. I suggest a recommendation of 3 reflections per week for traditional learning, and for learners who need a guide, 3 different types of processing including how what they’ve learned explains something in their past, how it suggests what they’ll do differently going further, and/or how it connects to something else in their life.

That latter is a personal version of the more general task of having learners elaborate the content. Thiagi has game frameworks that extend processing, pretty much content independently, and these are good, but there are more content-specific tasks as well. You can design questions that require learners to reprocess the information specifically in relation to how it’s applied. This can be to take a position on a controversial issue, or have them connect it to another concept (really helpful for setting up a subsequent concept), or explore a facet or nuance. Discussion forums can be good here, ideally having learners posting their own response before going in and seeing others (and having them comment constructively on one or several other posts).

Obviously, practice applying the concept to problems is the most important form of processing. While the best practice is mentored real practice, the problems with that (cost of mistakes, scalability of individual mentoring) mean games (or, to be PCâ„¢, immersive learning simulations) are another great practice. However, don’t forget the reflection! Reflection is an important form of processing after action, and one of the technology-mediated benefits is being able to capture individual performance and debrief it.

Another meaningful form of practice, particularly for knowledge work, is having a group work together to resolve a problem. Providing a challenge that mimics one in the real world (e.g. responding to an RFP) that has enough deliberate ambiguity to generate productive discussion is great. The discussion where learners are forced to come to a shared understanding that’s reflected in their response is highly likely to be fruitful, particularly if you’re careful in the design of the activity. I recall an academic colleague who responded to my query about not using games by relating how expensive digital production was, but how inexpensive group activity was. Again, a social augment to facilitate deep processing.

With a focus on creating meaningful processing, we can ensure that when we need to design real skill shifts (another story is ensuring that’s this is such a situation), we will think about ways to intensify, and extend, the processing to truly achieve the outcomes we need. Ok, have you processed that?

Standards and success

20 July 2009 by Clark Leave a Comment

Apparently, Google has recently opined that the future of mobile is web standards. While this is wonderfully vindicating, I think there’s something more important going on here, as it plays out for a broader spectrum than just mobile.

I’ve been reflecting on the benefits that standards have provided. What worked for networks was the standardization on TCP/IP as a protocol for packet transmission. What worked for email was standardization on the SMTP protocol. HTTP standardization has been good for the web, where it’s been implemented properly! What’s been a barrier are inconsistent implementations of web standards, like Microsoft’s non-standard versions of HTML for browsers and Java.

The source of the standard may be by committee, or by the originator. Microsoft’s done well for itself with the Office suite of applications, and by opening up the XML version, they’re benefiting while not doing harm. They own the space, and everyone has to at least read and write their format to have any credibility. While IMS & IEEE held meetings to get learning content standards nailed down, ADL just put their foot down with SCORM (and US Defense is a big foot), and it pretty much got everyone’s attention. But it’s having standards that matters. The fact that Blu-ray finally won the battle has really opened up the market for high definition video!

On the other hand, keeping proprietary standards has hindered development. At the recent VW talks hosted by SRI, one of the topics was the inability to transfer a character between platforms. That’s good for the providers, but bad for the development of the field. Eventually, one format will emerge, but it may take committees, or it may be that someone like Linden Labs will own the space sufficiently that everyone will lock into a format they provide. Until then, any investment has trouble being leveraged in a longer term picture, as the companies you go with may not survive! There’s an old saying about how wonderful standards are because there are so many of them. The problem is when they’re around the same thing! I was regaling a colleague with the time I smoked (er, caused to burn up, not lighting up!) an interface card by trying to connect two computers to exchange data. One manufacturer had, contrary to the standard, decided to put 12 volts on a particular pin!

And, unfortunately, in the mobile space, the major providers here in the US want to lock you into their walled garden, as opposed to, say, Europe, where all the phones have pretty much the same abilities to access data. This has been a barrier to development of services. The web is increasingly powerful, with HTML5, and so while some things won’t work, web-based applications are defaulting to the lingua franca for not just content exchange but interactive activities. The US is embarrassingly behind, despite the leading platforms (iPhone, Pre, etc).

In one sense this is sad that we can’t do better, but at least it’s good to have the web as a fallback now. We can make progress when it doesn’t matter what device, or OS, you’re using, as long as you can connect. The real news is that there is a lingua franca for mobile that you can use, so really there aren’t any reasons to hold off any longer. Ellen Wagner sees a tipping point, and I’m pleased to agree. There may be barriers for enterprise adoption, but as I frequently say: it’s not the technology, the barriers are between our ears (and maybe our pocketbooks :).

Update: forgot my own punchline. Standards need to be, or at least become, open and extensible for real progress to be made. When others can leverage, the greatest innovations can occur.

Standards are hard work, but the benefits for progress are huge. This holds true in your organization, as well. Are you paying attention to standards you should be using, and what you should standardize yourself?

Mining Social Media

15 July 2009 by Clark Leave a Comment

One of the proposed benefits of social media is the capture of knowledge that’s shared, taking the tacit and making it explicit. But really, how do we do this? I think we need to separate out the real from the ideal.

The underlying premise is that we have an enlightened organization that’s empowering collaboration, communication, problem-solving, innovation, etc (what I’m beginning to term ‘inspiration’ in all senses of the word) by providing a social media infrastructure, learning scaffolding, and a supportive culture. Now, all these people are sharing, but are we, and can we be, leveraging that knowledge?

The obvious first answer is that by sharing it with others, it’s being leveraged. If information is shared with the relevant people, it’s been captured for organizational use by being spread appropriately. That’s great, and far too few organizations are facilitating this in a systematic way. However, I’m always looking for the optimal outcome: not just the best that is seen, but the best that can be. So how can we go further?

The typical response is using data mining that focuses on semantic content: systematically parsing the discussions, and using powerful semantic tools to attempt to capture, characterize, and leverage information systemically. (Hmm, you could map out the knowledge propositions, and link them into coherent chains and then track those over time to see significant changes, even regularly re-sort to see if different perspectives are changing…oh, sorry, got carried away, enough adaptive system designing :).

In terms of social media systems, while there are analytics available, semantics are not part of it, as far as I can see. Further, I searched on social media mining, and found out that the first international workshop will be happening in November, but it’s not happened yet. There’s an interesting PhD thesis on the topic from UMaryland, but it’s focused on blogs and recommendations. In other words, it’s not ready for prime time.

The point is, that machine learning and knowledge mining mechanisms are in our future, but not our present. Don’t get me wrong, there are huge possibilities and opportunities here, but they’re a ways off. So, are we back to the best that can be? I want to suggest one other possibility. The systemic mechanisms are nice because, set up properly, they run regardless, but there’s another approach, and that’s human processing. For all the advances in technology, our brains are still pretty much the most practical semantic pattern matching engines going. So how would that work?

Well, let’s go back to the role that learning professionals play. We’ve already looked at how they could change as learning units take over responsibility for the broader picture of learning in the organization. Learning professionals need to be nurturing social learning, and that means being in there, monitoring discussions for opportunities to draw out other members, spark useful feedback, develop skills, and more.

Well, they also can and should be looking for outcomes that could be redesigned/redeveloped/reproduced for broader dissemination. They should be monitoring what’s happening and looking for information that’s worth culling out and distilling into something that’ll really bring out the impact of that information. Turning information into knowledge and even wisdom!

Yes, that’s a greater responsibility (though it’s also fun; you shouldn’t be in the learning space if you don’t love learning!). It’s a new skill set, but I’ve already argued that. The world’s changing, and the status quo won’t last long anyway. So, while you can just allow and hope that individuals will perceive the value of the information created, and even facilitate by encouraging people to participate in all the relevant communities (which will likely cross role, product/service, and more), there’s a step further that’s to the benefit of the organization and the learners.

We’ll steadily build support for that process, but it will be facilitated, and advanced, by individual practice to complement, supplement, and inform the mechanistic approaches. Don’t ignore this role; plan for it, prepare for it, and skill for it. Responsibility for recognizing should be shared, so that the individuals in the network are also doing it (for example, retweeting valuable information), and that’s a learning skill that should be developed.

Here’s hoping you find this valuable!

Implementing Learning Redesign

14 July 2009 by Clark Leave a Comment

In my Broken ID series, I talked about the mistakes people made and how the elements of elearning should be redesigned. I didn’t talk about how you’d revamp your design processes to achieve the results. And I should, because it’s easy to ‘get’ the concepts, harder to turn around and revise your organizational design processes so that they systematically are providing improved design. I’ve been involved in improving organizational design processes in several different instances, and it took several different steps to lead to persistent change.

Naturally, it starts with a good vision; you’ve got to have a sound basis for good design on tap. The Broken ID series is a good start (and there others), but it takes more than that.

The next step naturally is working through the implications for the design process, mapping out the principles and how they play out in practice makes the design guidance concrete. It helps if everyone’s on the same page, and a shared understanding has been negotiated, so developing this as a team is valuable. Having this facilitated by someone who can help interpret the principles through concrete examples and then applying it to inhouse work product is ideal, but even internal workshopping would likely provide some improvement.

Of course, this works better if the frameworks and design tools are aligned with this new vision. That is, any design templates need to be reviewed and updated, or design support needs to be created. The point is to provide scaffolding because old approaches are hard to shift. Think of it as performance support for design.

When I’ve been part of making this work in the past, a real benefit has come from having the first outputs from the design process be reviewed. External review has advantages, but even peer review (those who have not been part of the generating design team) can be advantageous. Document the mistakes made (anonymously may be desirable), or at least the remedies, and share them, so others learn from the process.

Finally, putting in place processes around the design process, e.g. ensuring that the solutions are designed to meet strategic initiatives, is a level of extra care to help ensure that the learning solution is of benefit. Not just ROI, but aligned to the business.

It’s surprisingly hard to make design changes persistent, and it’s been my experience that token efforts don’t lead to lasting results. It takes a systematic effort so that it’s hard to go back, as opposed to being hard to continue. That’s when you’ll find the change sticking.

There’s clearly still a deep need for better learning design, and the solution, while not trivial, is also not rocket science. There is a straightforward set of steps that will yield better designs, by design, and it’s reasonable in resources and time. Let’s practice what we preach, and design our design processes to be optimal, not just expedient. So, no more excuses for bad design, please!

Beyond Web 2.0

7 July 2009 by Clark 3 Comments

In preparing for a talk I’m going to give, I was thinking about how to represent the trends from web 1.0 through 2.0 to 3.0. As I’ve mentioned before, in my mind 3.0 is the semantic web. I think of web 2.0 as really two things, the social read-write user-generated content web, and the web-services mashup web. In elearning, we tend to focus on the former, but the latter is equally important.

Web2.0 However, if we think about web 2.0 as user-generated content, we can think about 1.0 as producer-generated content. The original web was what people savvy enough (whether tech or biz) could get up on the web. The new web is where it’s easy for anyone to get content up, through blogs, photo-, video-, and slide-sharing sites, and more.

Extending that, what’s web 3.0 going to be? If we take the semantic web concept, the reason we add these tags is for systems to start being able to use search and rules to find and custom-deliver content. An extension, however, is to have the system generate the necessary content (cf Wolfram|Alpha). In a sense, by knowing some things about you and your interests, needs, and activities, a system could proactively choose what and when to deliver information.

And that, to me, is really system-generated content, and a real opportunity. It’s not ahead of what we can do (though I recognize it’s ahead of where most are ready to be; why do you think it’s called Quinnovation? :), but it’s certainly something to keep on your radar. And when you’re ready, so am I!

Web 2.0 Learning Skills

6 July 2009 by Clark 3 Comments

The Learning Circuit’s blog big question of the month asks:

In a Learning 2.0 world, where learning and performance solutions take on a wider variety of forms and where churn happens at a much more rapid pace, what new skills and knowledge are required for learning professionals?

I have to say that there’s a lot in this. Taking a performance ecosystem approach, we also need to recognize that the responsibility of the learning role is more than just courses, it’s performance support, social/informal learning, content models, mobile, and more. How does this play out?

For one, it’s a shift in perspective. The responsibility needs to be for all organizational learning, not just formal learning. Who better? This means understanding information design, usability, and information architecture as well as instructional design. Also including for mobile, not just classroom and desktop. Thus, we have expanded content development skills.

There is more, however. As my colleagues and I have been talking, it’s also clear that the role of the learning designer will likely move from exclusively a content developer to likely more time spent as a learning facilitator. If we start having user-generated content, while we might occasionally be formalizing that, we’ll also need to be facilitating the learning process itself. We’ll have to be understanding how to nurture groups into cohesion, communication, and collaboration: how to catalyze discussions, how to maintain commitment, how to neutralize negativity, and and how to reach out to those who might feel alienated.

As a consequence, we’ll also have to understand organizational culture, the drivers and barriers to individuals feeling safe and valued to contribute. We’ll have to understand incentives, how to moderate behavior, how to align vision. It may not be completely within our power to address, but we have to know, recognize, and nurture useful cultural components, and when and how to point out problems to those who can change factors.

We won’t, for at least the short- and medium-term, be able to assume individual learning skills, also. We’ll have to know what individual and group learning skills are, make those explicit, assess and nurture them, and value them. It will mean letting go, too, as Jane Bozarth points out.

Finally, we’ll have to be smarter about organizational goals, because all of this can’t immediately be done completely for everything, so we’ll have to prioritize. We’ll have to earn the right to take on these responsibilities by showing that we know how they contribute to the organizational success.

If you don’t get this, we should talk. Developing these skills is critical, and the time to get moving is now. Is your organization ready?

Minimizing Transformative Disruption

2 July 2009 by Clark 3 Comments

A tweet by @JoshuaKerievsky pointed me to the Satir Change Model, in the context of introducing agile programming. The model purports to capture the disruptive effects of a new idea until it’s internalized, and I find it resonates quite well. My simplified version looks at it from the point of view of organizational change upon introduction of a new initiative, such as the organizational learning transformations I’m espousing and supporting.

OriginalSatirChangeCurve

In this simplified version, you can see that an intervention originally creates a decrement in performance, until the intervention takes hold, and then there are some hiccups incurred until the system stabilizes at a new and (hopefully) improved performance outcome. While we want the improvement, the decrement is something we’d like to minimize. However, how do we do that?

In researching it a little bit, I came upon a book that discussed using a stepwise approach to minimize it (also in software process improvements), and had a version of the diagram that demonstrated smaller decrements. StepwiseSatirChangeCurve By having smaller introductions that break up the intervention, you decrease the negative effects. The point is to take small steps that make improvements instead of a monolithic change.

That’s what I’m trying to achieve is breaking up the organizational transformation implied by the performance ecosystem, and customizing it for an organization by prioritizing steps into next week, next month, next year, etc. Of course, the diagram is only indicative, not prescriptive, but I trust you recognize what I mean.

The overall approach is to achieve the improvement, but in a staged way customized for a particular organization and context, not a one-size-fits-all approach that really won’t fit anyone. OverlappedSatirChangeCurve The goal is to maximize improvements while minimizing disruption, and doing so in ways that capitalize on previous efforts and existing infrastructure. To do this really requires understanding how the different components relate: how content models support mobile, how performance support articulates with formal learning and social media, and more. And, of course, understanding the nuances of the underpinning elements and how they are optimized.

Organizations can’t continue in the status quo of only formal learning, but I reckon many folks aren’t sure where and how to start. That’s the point of using a framework that points out how the elements interact, and coupling that with an specific organizational assessment. From there, you can prioritize steps, come up with action plans, be prepared to choose vendors, not have the vendor sell you on what they do best, and more. You’ve got to have a plan, or where you end up may not be the best place for your organization.

I’m reminded of the Cheshire Cat and Alice:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. ”
–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

So, do have a plan of where you want to get to, as well as an intent to start moving?

Artifacts of reflection

27 June 2009 by Clark 3 Comments

The other day John Ittelson stopped by for a visit. I think of him as the guru of video usage in elearning, not least because of the recording studio he built in his house! He mentioned his use of Flip camcorders, and finally a piece clicked into place that had been floating around in my thoughts.

Media Properties I’ve had a slight blindspot for photos and video because I peg the ‘conceptual’ meter. I recognize the value, though I don’t play with the files enough (tho’ I took a digital audio/video editing course more than a decade ago, and recently edited home videos for my wife’s birthday). Photos and videos are really good for contextualizing, and that’s particularly valuable for examples (and practice).

The revelation was about the value of having learners capture information in situ, and sharing this for a variety of reflective opportunities. The information captured can be performances, products, whatever. It could also be interviews, or thoughts.

A colleague’s wife used to take an iPod with a microphone to conduct interviews. Gina Schreck discussed giving groups of employees Flips to make videos of what their business unit does for the org, to share. John mentioned capturing samples of teaching to share. Having captures of actual practice is a valuable tool around which to scaffold discussion, and a powerful tool for reflection. You can capture someone’s stories of best practices, or your own performance to review.

Note that making both other’s and personal captures available opens up the opportunity to learn more with and from others than your own reflective observations will provide, if you can be that open. As a learning facilitator, you should provide ways for individuals and groups to capture and share thoughts, actions, events, and more.

One of the powerful things in digital performance environments (read: games, er, immersive learning simulations, and virtual worlds as was part of the discussion the other day) is the ability to capture records of action for review, too. So look at ways to digitally track activity in learning environments (another reason to make the alternative to the right choice to be a reliable misconception!).

Reflection is powerful, and digital tools give us ways to truly leverage that power. Reflect on that!

Rethinking Virtual Worlds

24 June 2009 by Clark 3 Comments

I guess I have a visceral aversion to hype, because my initial reaction to ‘buzz’ is focusing in on the core affordances and disparaging mistaken uses of a new technology. However, I do eventually open to taking advantage of the affordances in new ways. Case in point: learning styles. I pointed out the flaws in the thinking several times, and then rethought them (without removing my previous views, I looked for the positive opportunities). Now, preparing for a presentation, I’m rethinking some of my stances on learning in virtual worlds.

I’ve previously opined that there are two key affordances in virtual worlds: the spatial and the social, and that the technical overheads mean that unless there’s a long term relationship, the associated costs really argue that you should be hitting both. I’m not changing that, but I was wondering what we might do if we did try to leverage those key affordances deliberately to support learning.

Taking a slightly cheeky approach, and quite willing to discredit presenting powerpoint presentations ‘in world’, I’ve tried to think through some subordinary, ordinary, and potentially extraordinary approaches to learning in a virtual world. That is, opening learners up both cognitively and emotionally, presenting concepts, having examples available, creating meaningful practice, and scaffolding reflection. What might we do?

Starting with pedagogy, I think a standard instructional design (read: presentations) is clearly subordinary. An ordinary pedagogy might be a problem-based approach, but a really extraordinary approach might be to create a full immersive storyline in which the problem is embedded, turning it into a game world: a World of LearnCraft. The idea is to mimic more closely the urgency typically felt when applying the knowledge in the real world (where it counts) by creating a similarly meaningful storyline to develop the associated motivation. Then embedding resources in the story would scaffold the learning. Of course, what I’m really talking about is game design ;).

Working with concepts, just presenting them is subordinary. Ordinary would be having them explorable, mapping them out in space, maybe with a scavenger hunt asking learners to find answers to questions embodied in the model. A truly extraordinary approach would be to have the learners co-create the concept representation, using the collaborative creation capability available at least in Second Life.

Just having a poster for an example seems subordinary. Having an example ‘gallery’, where you can examine the problem, the approach, and the results would be an ordinarily good approach. Ideally, the example could have the conceptual model layered on top of the decisions, mapping them to represent how th concept played out in context. Beyond that, however, having the example be truly exploratory, where you could make certain decisions and see how they play out, and being able to backtrack (particularly with annotation about the mistakes the original team made) would be really extraordinary.

Practice is where we can and should be looking to games. While having a quiz would be truly subordinary (if not maniacally mistaken), having a problem to solve ‘in world’ would be an ordinary approach. Again, having the problem be situated in a storyline, as the overall pedagogy, would be truly meaningful. It’s easiest if the task is inherently spatial and social, but we certainly can benefit from the immersion, and building in social learning components can lead to powerful outcomes.

I’m somewhat concerned about trying to make reflection ‘in world’, because it’s inherently an ‘immediate’ environment. It’s synchronous, and it’s been documented where normally reflective kids can go all ‘twitch’ in a digital environment. It may be that reflection is ‘best’ when kept out of the world. But for the sake of argument, let’s consider external reflection to be subordinary, and consider what might be ordinary and extraordinary. Surely, having an ‘in-world’ but ‘post-experience’ discussion would be the ordinary approach. Again, co-creating a representation of the underlying model guiding performance would be a really powerful reflective opportunity.

You still want to make some very basic learning decisions about virtual worlds. If you don’t have an inherent expectation that there’s a long-term relationship with the world, the technical and learning overheads to facility in using the world would clearly suggest that you should seriously ensure that the payoff is worth it (like if the learning outcome is inherently spatial and social) and otherwise consider alternatives. After that, you want to ensure that you’ve got meaningful practice. That’s your assessment component, and you do want them applying the knowledge. I suppose you could have the world be for concepts and examples, and have practice in some other format, but I admit I’m not sure why. Around the practice, figure out how to embed concept and example resources. Finally, seriously reflect on how you support reflection for your learners.

Serious learning can and does happen in virtual worlds, but to make it happen systematically is a matter of design, not just the platform. Fair enough?

Mistakes and easy steps to ‘the next level’

22 June 2009 by Clark Leave a Comment

One of my clients told me I helped him take his elearning to the ‘next level’. I like that, naturally (it’s certainly my aim), but I started thinking what that means, practically. More importantly, at many levels there are easy steps to the ‘next level’. So where do people go wrong and what are the associated opportunities?

One of the mistakes I see is ‘cookie cutter’ instructional design. I’ve rarely found an elearning course that wasn’t flawed, and there has typically been a reliable pattern in execution that can be remedied fairly systematically with a straightforward approach. I wrote the whole ‘broken ID‘ blog series around it, but that was at the very specific design level. At the organizational level, what’s a firm to do? It’s about updating the design team understanding (workshop) and reviewing the design process (templates). It may also take a stronger attitude with stakeholders about meaningful outcomes (strategy update).

Another mistake I see is a limited technology repertoire. Many organizations are ignoring the opportunities afforded by the proliferation of mobile devices. Folks have them, but organizations aren’t capitalizing, and for the wrong reasons. Sure, the different platforms have different standards, but this is more a barrier at the top end, not the entry level (and those problems are going away as certain areas are getting easier). There are some low-hanging fruit at the ‘making existing material available’ and at the ‘easy development of custom application’ levels. Taking the time to develop a mobile strategy is a small investment with a potentially large payoff.

A further mistake is not recognizing the need for organizations to go beyond formal training and deliberately start supporting informal learning. With training budgets shrinking, it just amazes me how many units are still taking the ‘we do courses’ approach and missing out on the bigger picture. With my TogetherLearn colleagues, we’ve been on about this, and again, the development of a social media infrastructure is relatively low-cost, and while it takes some time again the payoff for the organization can be huge. Figuring out an approach that suits your current situation and infrastructure is another big opportunity.

Beyond these steps, there are organizations still developing content without consideration of the underlying content model and the opportunities. Not developing content in a delivery-independent framework is a missed opportunity both for now and the future. The development redundancies in most organizations is a real potential opportunity for savings in efficiency, and the possibility in relatively advanced organizations to start using business rules to do personalization and mass-customization is hard to fathom.

The list goes on. I’m not saying you need to do all of them today, but taking the right next step for your organization, and realizing that wherever you are, there are low-cost, high-return possibilities available, should be something you are thinking about. Whether you take one on, tactically, or step back and make a plan whereby you figure out what your next steps are going to be, in order, you should be thinking ahead. Status quo is definitely threatened, I think, and therefore I encourage you to be considering how you’re going to be in a continual improvement loop. Time’s a wasting!

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