Learning Live 4 - 5 September, 2019

Massive thanks to The Learning and Performance Institute for hosting Learning Live 2019. A fantastic opportunity to learn from some great minds, meet some wonderful people and be truly inspired about how we can lead change for the future.

In preparation for attending Learning Live 2019, I listened to the Learning Uncut Podcast #34 with Michelle Ockers, Karen Maloney and Amanda Ashby where they interviewed JD Dillon and Emma Weber.

Emma talked about the need to do your research in advance to make selecting sessions a little easier, but to remain flexible on the day.

Karen and Emma also talked about the importance of setting time aside to reflect on the learnings from the event and follow up any connections.

Your secret weapon for competitive advantage: Learning Experience Design

Rob Hubbard

Rob is a designer who talked about the need to deploy the appropriate solution for the specific problem. He talked about there being too much choice and that this is not always a good thing. It can be paralyzing as it devalues all the options. He claims, ‘choice makes us feel in control’ and ‘choice is good if you have time’.

Today, we are spoiled for choice. And, we are not always sure of the problem, because of the pace of change and the unknown future ahead.

His tool looks to find the right solution for the problem that client is facing.

We had a collaborative discussion around our perception of whether our work experiences were more, similarly or less complicated than 10 years ago.

Those who felt it was less complicated, felt that ‘technology is wonderful and terrible’, explaining that technology is an enabler and when utilized to complement our human abilities, can simplify work and support productivity. However, it can be a distractor and many heads in the room nodded about the difficulties of staying on task due to invasive technologies.

Those who felt work was equally complex stated that the problems are different and that we have better tools to deal with the problems we face. Someone stated ‘the problems are less, but the complexity has changed and work has become more technical.’

Those who felt it was more complicated claimed to feel they were being ‘dragged in different directions’ and that they were not really sure of their role.

Rob Hubbard assured this participant that this was a good sign that a robot is less likely to take his job as it is more likely that it requires human skills difficult to replicate with technology.

He claimed a problem is simply something to find a solution to.

He advocates for learning experience design which he defined as ‘the process of creating learning experiences that enable the learner to achieve the desired learning outcomes in a human centred world’, stating that it needs to be:

• Lean
• Focused
• Human centred

He advised us to drop the word ‘learning’ when we are talking about outcomes (ie outcomes, not learning outcomes).

For most of us, work is pretty complex, but we can identify patterns to identify and minimise or avoid the disruptions.

To achieve this, we need ‘robust repeatable rationale’ to determine the right approach to a challenge or problem a client is facing.

He then outlined his approach to learning experience design:

I have written these as questions I would ask myself.

1: Size of the problem or opportunity

• Is it aligned to key strategy?
• How many people are likely to be impacted?
• What is the potential financial impact?
• At what moment of need are we (this is in reference to Mosher and Gottfredson’s five moments of learning needs below):

Learning for the first time (New)

Learning More (More)

Applying what you’ve learned (Apply)

When things go wrong (Problem Solving)

When things change (Change)

2. Who is the audience?

• What are their problems/concerns/challenges?
• What ideas do they have?
• Who are the SMEs and what are their agendas? Do they understand the problem to be solved or are they coming in with predetermined solutions?

 3. Existing IT infrastructure

• What is being used, what isn’t
• What can you use as is
• What can we adapt

 4. What is the culture

• Macro – what is the stated culture of organization, this is a destination eg values, strategies, principles
• Micro – what audience you are designing solution for, driven by line managers and their managers

Note: To uncover the answers to these questions:

• Go into business and talk to people, ideally informally, get a sense of what they are like
• Look at job roles, understand the type of people
• Consider people’s intentions/motivators, eg competitive roles are less likely to be collaborative

 5.      How much time is available?

6.      What is the budget?

7.      Are there any other boundaries? Remember, boundaries are good as they set the parameters to work within.

Rob’s business solution is a learning diagnostic found at www.las-hq.com

The tool can be used with stakeholders to open up their thinking.

In the Questions and Answers session

Q: What is your personal view of which form of learning is THE BEST?

A: A red flag is if the vendor is telling you their solution fixes everything. One size does not fit all.

Unfortunately, this solution does not exist.

Successful organisations realise there are different solutions for different problems. Case by case basis. More difficult but greater impact.

Q: How do we know if the solution will work?

A: Test it with the users.

Are Your L&D Efforts Driving Business Performance

Mike Byrne - Netex

Mike started with Josh Bersin’s quote

“The single biggest driver of business impact is the strength of an organisation’s learning culture.”

This most likely explain the reason learning professionals identified ‘Creating a learning culture’ as their number 1 in their Top 5 Challenges for Learning Leaders at the moment in the Learning and Performance Institute survey.

Mike talked about the need for ‘really impactful learning experiences that lead to performance’. I don’t have the source of this data, but he showed a slide that stated:

·      Business impact is the No. 1 measure desired by CEOs (OK, that’s good news for us, because we can support that)

·      Yet only 8% currently see the business impact of L&D (which makes me wonder, is it because we are not making a significant impact, or is it that we are not seen as contributors to performance – do we need better measures to demonstrate our value, or do we need to check back on whether our efforts are leading to impact?)

·      ROI is the number 2 most desired measure desired by CEOs, yet only 4% currently see ROI of L&D (so we know where their interest lies, we just need to deliver what they need – simple!)

We then had a small group chat about what we mean by the term ‘business performance’ in our organisations. Is it:

·      To increase revenue

·      Increase market penetration

·      Increase customer satisfaction

·      Increase customer retention

·      Increase employee engagement and retention

This varied across our table. My personal view has always been, that by increasing employee engagement and retention, you can achieve the others.

He explained that L&D is currently going through change due to:

·      Shifting skill requirements

·      Increasing skill gaps

·      Decreasing shelf life

·      Need to demonstrate business impact

·      Decreasing response time

·      Increasing learner expectations.

Day 2 - Edmund Monk - CEO The Learning and Performance Institute

Munk reiterated the top workplace challenges faced by learning professionals as reported in a survey conducted by The Learning and Performance Institute.

1.      Creating a learning culture

2.      Developing the workforce of the future

3.      Digital transformation and digital learning

4.      Leadership and management development

5.      Self-directed learning

He set the scene for Day 2 and introduced Graham Brown-Martin.

Leading Innovation in Times of Exponential Change

Graham Brown-Martin

Edmund Munk introduce Graham Brown-Martin as someone at the forefront of AI interested in learning without frontiers. He mentioned Brown-Martin’s Ted X talk and his belief that a connected society can transform learning.

This experience was profound! This keynote made the whole trip worthwhile. I was engrossed from the first moment to the last. So many take-aways that I can apply to my own work to truly making a difference.

Pre-warning: I WILL NOT do this justice.

But, I will share some of the points here.

Brown-Martin briefly mentioned his book Learning Reimagined. It’s on my Christmas list.

Brown-Martin started by explaining that he is interested in anticipatory research and foresight on political, societal and technological trends to try and anticipate what might happen.

He identified that most organisations today have fast, scalable and affordable access to technology to handle operational processing tasks. These are likely to be replaced by robots and presents a challenge to humans who want to remain valuable.

He explained that there are key things about humans that make us different from computers such as creativity, imagination, social and emotional intelligence and passion. He highlighted that these traits have traditionally been suppressed through education and work. But to thrive in a digitized world, we need to foster these traits so we add value – and not be replaced by robots.

Therefore, our response to digital disruption must be to ‘humanize the jobs’. That is, define roles that require human traits that are difficult for robots to replicate.

To achieve this, we need to determine those skills that are less likely to be automated soon such as emotional intelligence, critical thinking, creativity and problem solving.

Essentially, we need to do things robots can’t do.

To achieve this we need to create a culture towards lifelong learning that celebrates creativity. He reminded us that the knowledge exists with the organisation and made a provocative statement ‘you can’t outsource innovation’. That really made me think and I am planning to write more about this later.

He then engaged us in an activity where we were all given the same lego pieces and asked to make a duck in 90 seconds. We were permitted to work alone or collaborate. You can probable see where this is going.

Same instruction, same resources, multiple outcomes.

This led Brown-Martin to explain that ‘innovation is just ‘joining the dots that others can’t see’.

It is really as simple as that!!!

He showed us a video that I know I will share often.

If you read no further, I strongly recommend you at take the time to watch this video.

I challenge you not to be inspired!

For us, our challenge is to facilitate the joining of these dots. To allow others to see the unexpected connections we do not see ourselves. To allow imagination and to challenge the status quo (whichever terminology you prefer).

He recommends establishing multi-disciplinary teams to amplify this effect.

And always remember, like the duck activity – there is not only one answer (Note: I must acknowledge that in the world where I currently work, this is not always the case, but I think we need the ability and permission to distinguish when there is a right answer and where we can allow creativity to flow).

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn."

Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, 1970

The ability to unlearn something is quite hard. Education has mitigated against curiosity.

Possibly my favourite quote of the event ‘We have a history of doing dumb stuff!’ followed closely by ‘just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should.’ This links to many of the sessions compelling us as learning professionals to ensure we are relevant and adding value, not simply creating content.

Brown-Martin advocates for STEAM, not STEM to incorporate humanities and ethics in education.

(Note: Interestingly, there was little mention of ethics and cybersecurity across the whole of Learning Live. I think this is an essential part of this conversation and everyone needs to take responsibility for educating themselves on the capabilities of emerging technology so we can take a stance if our human liberties are threatened. Again, I will write about this later)

Eco experts (June 2017) based on data from the Notre Dame Global Adaptation (ND-Gain

On a positive note, digital disruption will see the advent of amazing new employment opportunities. Brown-Martin predicts we will see migration as the new normal. But, we need to prepare for technological unemployment on an unprecedented scale.

Brown-Martin’s mantra, which I think should be a mantra of our current and future workforce – ‘Automate the work, humanize the jobs.’

Then, he ramped it up and it got really interesting. Thought provocation on steroids.

Fear tactics maybe? Depends on your perspective.

Brown-Martin highlighted that we are now seeing a greater concentration of wealth among smaller number of people and organisations. That there is downward pressure on incomes.

The precariat is emerging. This is a social group suffering from downward pressure on their security due to unstable work and underpayment (or worse – no payment).

I think he was challenging us in the room to look after these people. To support them to develop capabilities that can complement rather than compete with technology. This will benefit those members of the precariat, but I imagine, also the organisations they work for.

Our role is to look at what is coming and think about a solution. He says if it is based on rules or can be measures, it will be automated.

The problem he identified is that the current education system is to pass tests and that this may not be the ideal model to prepare students for the future. (Note: Bingo! I cannot agree more and will definitely be writing more about this in future).

He claims that we reduce teaching and learning to instruction and that education is based on facts and procedures that are then measured. He presented his quadratic equation example, pointing out that many of us in the room would have learnt and applied the quadratic equation at some point in our lives, but that most of us would be unable to recall it now.

He explains that most technology is assisting teaching not learning and that it is the same pedagogy with a different tool. (I think most of us in the industry worked this out a while ago. I am not convinced though that those outside of L&D ie our customers, understand this. It is our job to resist their requests and show them a better way. More about that later.)

He suggests that instead of referring solely to someone’s resume when recruiting, take a look at what they have written, who have they collaborated with? (maybe check out git hub? – I need to look into this…)

He reassures us that humans will still be required when AI takes hold. He pointed out that as humans, we are social and like social connection and connectedness and that robots cannot replace this. Robots cannot create a new business for example, this requires entrepreneurship.

He indicated that robots will be single tasked while the unique thing about being human is that we can adapt. (OK, this has me a little torn because with the limited knowledge I have of AI and machine learning, I had thought machine was capable of some, if only minimal adaptation as machines become capable of learning???)

Graham showed us a video to introduce us to six word stories and our tables to asked to come up with some to explain the purpose of learning and development.

There were some really strong examples such as:

·      People enabler. Better Performance. Following passion.

·      Enable passionate people to perform better.

·      Ability to empower and change humanity.

·      Grow the person. Grow the business.

·      Couldn’t do it. Learnt. Nailed it.

·      People did stuff right. Every time.

·      Enabling you for today and tomorrow.

Apologies I am not able to credit those who came up with them.

He pointed out that the alternative to instructionism is constructionism and implored us to bring the creative learning spiral back into learning, suggesting we need to:

·      Make things

·      do things

·      apply to project and challenges

We can then learn by making and sharing so knowledge is reconstructed not merely transmitted.

He claimed that computers can follow instructions, but humans are capable of more and through constructionism, we can we enable people to do something more than they could before

Then….I am sure he mentioned that he was a guitarist in the band Nine Inch Nails!!!! Can he get any higher on my pedestal?

He spoke briefly about the need for a series of learning experiences.He gave us a different 4Ps to those marketing ones, being:

• Projects
• Passion
• Peers
• Play – being ok that first implementation does not work

We can blend these, for example, projects should be something that participants are passionate about.

He then gave us three framework for critical thinking

• Creative
• Critical
• Computational – because we will be working with machines, know how they work and what they do, know what is possible and what we want them to do

 And explained that these can be ‘mashed up’ to create new frameworks. For example, blend creative and critical and you get design thinking, creative and computational and you get scientific. Magic!!!

He referred to Seymour Papert, Mindstorms 1980, that provides a framework for creativity that has ‘low floors, high ceilings and wide walls’.

Low floors – make progress quickly, to get started,

High ceilings – so it can become super sophisticated

Wide walls – not so narrow so there is only one answer

Brown-Martin reminded us of the importance of personalization being about the person, warning that while AI can assist, we need to proceed with caution.

He reinforced the importance of teaching as a relationship. (For me, this brought home the importance of coaching and mentoring spaced over time, to provide individual, contextualized support. While the delivery of this can be, on the surface, more labour intensive than something like an elearning module or classroom instruction, coaching and mentoring are likely to lead to learning that enables improved performance).

He went on to say that to forster creativity we need to embed this in our culture (I keep hearing this word – insert thinking emoji). We need to create an environment where creativity and innovation can exist.

This starts with a common purpose that explains why the company exists, that is evident in the mission that talks about what the organisation does and the vision that states where the organisation wants to be.

Learning can be left to happen, but we establish the environment to allow everyone to follow the ‘north star’.

Q: Unprecedented challenge

In your work, are they considering ethics

Michio Gecko?

Economic model – neoliberalism

Neo-classical has not given us the ability to fix something like climate change

We end up with a machine that is constantly running

Businesses and govts are stuck in this economic model

OECD, World Bank, IMF, moving into this space

Turmoil is around that

Structural reform

We need to decide on what the society is that we want

The New Generation of Learning

I then attended a panel discussion from four professionals talking about the New Generation of Learning.

(Unfortunately, I did not record the questions put forward by Kate Graham, but will provide the information here and you can do a bit of jeopardy to work them out).

Bianca Balcanu– XMA

Lloyd Dean - EDF Energy

Helen Marshall – Brightwave Group

Jack Lockhart - Virgin

I think it was Lloyd who spoke first about the appointment of a Learning Culture Manager at EDF Energy.

He started by stating that every organisation has a culture we just need to decide if we choose to accept it.

To do this, we need to understand how the individual units are learning by asking na?ve questions and not assuming we know everything about how people learn

For him this meant stripping back the LMS and cancelling face-to-face learning and investigating usage data from google analytics so decisions could be based on evidence. This formed the foundation for the strengthening of business relationships as they were partnering with the business.

For Bianca, (her organisation must be a startup I think) she spoke about building a culture from scratch.

They started by looking at people in the business who had not had any recent formal development.

Board didn’t have people in mind, how do we ensure managers are successful? Began development conversations. Rather than offering something off the shelf, they asked people what they felt they need and how often they got feedback. This was all about putting people first.

Importantly, this approach was supported by the board which assisted with getting people invested, but she did admit they received mixed reactions with those who had been around the shortest time being most likely to accept the change.

Jack advised that at Virgin, a more traditional learning culture was preferred.

He is relatively new to his role, but talked about getting started by taking the best bits of what is going on and eliminating the stuff they don’t want.

He explained how they tried different things and tracked usage with google analytics to identify where people picked up and/or dropped off.

The reason for this in Jack’s words is to ‘fish where the fish are’, meaning that if you want to train people, find out those critical points where they are most motivated to learn. Data can assist with identifying these points.

Helen is from the supplier side and spoke about how Brightwave works with clients to understand their culture by asking the right questions to uncover that information.

Bianca reinforced Helen’s comments claiming that innovation is about understanding the culture and using the right tools to deliver objectives so we can be responsive to what the company needs.

She explained that her organisation had built on performance management conversations and discovered that people want the ability to have one on one conversations.

They wanted to know where are they going, what the priorities are and receive feedback on how they are performing.

Rather than waiting for the calendar to determine when these conversations occurred, performance management was stripped back and performance conversations became more regular. This was achieved by training managers on how to provide constructive feedback, working with their teams to set goals that linked to the overall business goals and track progress toward achieving them.

I think she stated that turnover was 21.5% and is now 15%. I may have the numbers wrong here, but there has definitely been improvement, although Bianca does acknowledge the improvement cannot wholly and solely be attributed to this adjusted approach.

Lloyd spoke about L&D’s role at EDF as being to connect business strategy and enable people to understand what they need to do to add impact.

He stated that line managers are crucial to support individuals and critical for innovation.

He sees his role as a support for managers.

Jack explained that Virgin appointed a new CEO in June who has brought a whole new momentum around culture and business objectives.

He had reinstated the notion that work is about having fun and that this is achieved by having a clearly agreed purpose with objectives that align and are constantly reinforced.

He mentioned they had the support of the Leadership academy in decision making to support their 'north star'.

Helen

When asked if she tracks the impact of her solutions, Helen responded by saying they do, by clarified this with ‘if we have buy in from clients’.

Lloyd

Spoke about the importance of simplifying data as many are new to this journey and need to be supported through it.

He referred to the Lori-Niles Hoffman video on her website that I am yet to watch, but have heard so many people speak about.

In the video, Lori suggests using data to find out what people are searching for. This can help inform what people are inspired by so you can build on their internal curiosity. She states that creativity is asking the questions.

Focus groups – 100 people cross representation, still vague as business units were specific, now smaller focus groups,

Jack – inspiration

Curiosity – data and insights, too rich in data, but can’t work out at what point someone has dropped off

Informatics team – GIGO, challenge is to get the data correct, want to be able to look at google analytics to investigate what people are looking for

Finding time and space to do it

Intent is there, follow through is required

David James podcast people analytics

Lloyd – LinkedIn learning had data around when people were promoted, were trying to do that themselves but realised they could access data that already existed.

VR was solving something specific, so they did find it worked

Be prepared to challenge – we will always receive ‘this is how we have always done it’. Keep challenging.

Continually ask 'What does good look like?'

Confidence and ability for managers or colleagues to feel they have a place to discuss development, get feedback and access what you need to further your career

Jack – if someone comes and says ‘I have a problem’, be a trusted partner if people come with solution mindset, it is difficult to ask questions to identify problem

Lloyd – Learning Culture Manager

Getting team settled

New roles, learning curators, simple but effective

LinkedIn learning

How can we have focus groups and measure success, pivot from there

Helen – what do you expect to be coming through, incubating, VR

What will become mainstream

Looking at collaborating with partner companies to leverage information and capability

Investing in emerging tech – can see value in those tools for training in future

How many are adopting agile ways of working?

Lloyd – how we deal with projects has changed, saying no to projects to free up space

Needs to be organic, not text book

Jack – new CEO, big challenge with agile, big A or little agile? Do you just mean you want to pivot a lot? Question what they mean.

Helen – it is about adapting to new ways of working, not a formal production method, how can we do that for clients

Bianca – report to FD and MD

L&D usually last to find out, now they have more control of own budget and are part of the conversations (not into HR)

 What advice would you give to others?

Jack – don’t read the text books, don’t take others for granted, what is experience, same over and over or development, read to the side, business wars, tangential stuff, be curious, don’t just stay in L&D

Bianca – get as much exposure as possible,

Helen – build on the knowledge of the people around you. You won’t always have the right answers. You are not going to be able to do it all yourself.

Lloyd – find peace with who you are and finding your own way

Team – help others, know the team, be empathetic, team are most critical thing o success

Be curious, be courageous, be kind.

Common sense is not always common done.

Tackling the Challenge of Learning Technology Adoption

Nick Shackelton-Jones

I had read a recent article by Shackleton-Jones on my train the previous day, so was fortunate to have some knowledge to build on for this session. This one felt more like entertainment than a conference lecture, with innumerable nuggets of gold dispersed throughout for the taking.

Shackleton-Jones started by distinguishing between learning and education, explaining that the former is user and context centric, task led, reflection based and implicit. Interestingly, he pointed out that it is a natural learning approach.

Conversely, education is ritualistic, instructor led, fact based, content centric and explicit.

Shackleton-Jones spoke about the inefficiency of traditional methods of instruction and advocates for training that builds on an individual’s emotional response. He did point out that the format in which he was presenting was conflicting with that theory. He advised that although we were all hearing him say the same things, our interpretation and by extrapolation, what we learn from it, would largely be determined by our previous experience. He claims that learning is not about content, but what matters to the learner.

He shared Bower and Clark’s research that demonstrated we are seven times more likely to remember information that is converted to a story.

He claims that we do not actually remember experiences, but our reactions to those events and these emotions are what we recall. He presented his affective context model of:

stimulus > initial reaction > learned reaction.

He suggests that where people are already motivated to learn, it is likely more efficient to provide them with ‘resources not courses’ (a commonly stated phrase in our industry that Shackleton-Jones is responsible for establishing).

Therefore, we need to think about user experiences when designing learning and provide experiences for people that they can learn from. But we need to split out the things we need to experience, vs the things we just need to be able to look up.

He stated that we develop implicit knowledge through reactions and experiences and this will relate to what is important to the learner.

He warns that if we do not take the time to understand the learner’s experience then the process is going to be inefficient.

Again, I am not going to do this justice, but will try my best here.

Shackleton-Jones started by talking about Ebbinghaus’ experiments of children attempting to recall trigrams (ie a series of three letters in order).

Bartlett FC Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge

He said that the theory behind the need to embed knowledge in one’s brain follows the belief in the Cartesian mind, that is that we see the mind as separate from our body and assume it is similar to a computer that we can upload information to so it is available for download as and when required.

Shackleton-Jones talked about the importance of stories and how storytelling is effective where you are attempting to get your audience to care. He warned that everyone has a different story though and the only one that matters is their own.

He recommends making resources available to allow people to select the resources that are relevant for their situation.

However, if people are not motivated because they care, it may be helpful to share a story that increases the likelihood they will care. Stories can be persuasive. For example, the health and safety training that presents a story where someone suffers, thus promoting the need to vigilantly follow health safety procedures. This is likely to increase the motivation for learning, because people will care.

He spoke about memory as being incredibly unreliable and referred to Loftus and Palmer’s Reconstruction of automobile destruction study where multiple witnessed had varying accounts of automobile accidents, despite having been exposed to exactly the same event.

(Loftus, E and Palmer Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory)

His conclusion is that this is due to the different starting points each person had. As learning builds on what knowledge is already there and what people care about, then different people will construct knowledge differently – resulting in differing knowledge.

He explains that where people care and are motivated, allow access to resources they can pull.

Where people don’t care, create an experience or tell them a story that moves them. For example, a safety story where someone made a mistake.

He presented a six step person centred design model:

1.      Define

2.      Discover

3.      Design

4.      Develop

5.      Deploy

6.      Iterate

In this approach, you ask people about their challenges and build ‘useful stuff’.

He recommends we either:

·      create resources that help people achieve the things they care about; or

·      experiences to get them to care about something they don’t

To support learning, you need to find out what people care about.

People learn from mistakes where they are impacted by them and should be encouraged to see them as learning opportunities.

Ruthlesley Relevant - How to engage the modern learner

Bianca Bauman

Bianca presented a compelling case for treating learning design as one would a marketing campaign by applying the marketing funnel to identify the different touch points and delivery channels.

She explained that marketing is good at working out where someone is in the marketing funnel and delivering what they need.

Marketers collect data to find out about you so they can deliver messaging that speak directly to the user. Access information such as what people are downloading, when they drop off, what they share, how they access, what comments they make and the time of day these things are happening.

She recommends looking at a learner’s overall journey and making experiences available that meet their needs. She advised that we need to encourage them to find their own resources and create an environment of trust.

She advocated for designing dynamic content by creating a framework that could be adapted by role or other factors.

She presented a campaign example using dynamic content, commencing with a face to face kick off session that was followed up with an email with links at a set time afterward. She tracked to see how they interacted. How people interacted with the email determined what future experiences would be presented to them and the campaign concluded with a face to face closing session.

She suggested that testimonials are useful for sharing experiences.

She challenged us to think of content as a business asset by creating a content strategy (like an inventory). This would may help us to determine if the cost of the assets we create are likely to justify the development expense and challenge us to ensure we create meaningful, engaging and sustainable content that is available at the right time, in the right place for the right audience.

When creating something new, ask if anything already exists and if we need to create something.

Bianca provided some examples of persona’s to demonstrate how we can create learner segments and referred us to Lori Niles-Hoffman’s video on data driven learning design.

She suggested that at the beginning of the learner journey, we need to increase their interest and a teaser video may be appropriate here.

Her final message was to compel us to be ruthlessly relevant. This can be achieved by making learning personal. Using data to anticipate learner needs and making experiences available at the point of need.

Bianca has a free ebook that can be downloaded at biancabaumann.com/ebook