What we learned at Future-Proof Your Training Business 2019

Deliver ‘Learning as a Service’ so you future-proof the professionals you serve

Corjan BastMay 24, 2019Editor's pick

What we learned at Future-Proof Your Training Business 2019

Walking through the rain in London last Wednesday, I heard that several tube lines had severe delays. I wondered how many people would be deterred from going out to an event with the title: Future-Proof Your Training Business.

My fear was misplaced. A great group of learning professionals came to learn, network and share their experience about a wide range of topics relating to their training (business).

Here are the seven takeaways from the event,
written down by our UK based colleague:
Jan Jills van Delsen.

1. Networking

Networking for me always is an important part, and there was plenty of opportunity for it. Starting with lunch; people got together and caught up with their acquaintances. Once in the meeting room, I really liked that people sat down at the tables and everybody immediately introduced themselves and started chatting.

2. Transformational learning

In this working life, you will likely not have one type of job. A great example is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who went from being a world-class bodybuilder to an actor and became governor of California. Three completely different careers and skill sets. Ger Driesen introduced the terms transactional and transformational learning. Transactional learning relates to your current job and transformational learning to your next career. If you are able to ‘future proof’ the professionals you serve, it can be a great strategy to future proof your training business.

3. Didactical models

Valli Rajagopal from Digital Learn talked about how a training company can consider several didactical models when building an online presence. I was introduced to Cognitive Apprenticeship and Community of Enquiry. The first one is about a master teaching skills to an apprentice. This is a much-used theme in Hollywood movies. Community of Enquiry is a group of learners engaging in challenging situations. A good example is doing your course and working on problem-solving cases in teams.

4. Technology update strategy

Technology moves quite fast, and the platform that powered your online and blended training delivery five years ago might well be outdated. Iain Dickens from ACCA discussed what questions you should ask yourself if you want to renew the technology in your training delivery.

5. What financial models can I choose from?

Andrew Herbert from CIEH talked about the many financial models that the different vendors work with. Many of these models seem to work best for the vendor but not for the customer. Transparency and simplicity determine if a vendor is easy to work with. If you’re a big enough customer, you can probably determine your own financial model.

6. What does a shift in L&D skills mean for the training provider?

Donald Taylor (LPI) looked at a customer of the training provider, the L&D professional. How does their role change and how does that affect the training provider? The LPI introduced the capability map. E.g. L&D professionals will need to learn about data analytics. As more training is delivered online and as blended programs, more data becomes available to measure results and impact. This means that training providers are asked for more detailed reports but will also have to make sure that they can explain the data to their customers.

7. Wrap up via the ‘unpanel’

An approach often used at events is a panel discussion. That can be great although panellists are more engaged than the audience. Ger Driesen ‘flipped’ the model and moderated the ‘unpanel’ session. The speakers from previous sessions came up with questions and the audience discussed those questions at their table to find answers. The questions were:

How to get started with (learning) data?
How can you make the impact of learning explicit and visible?
How to work most effectively with ‘subject matter experts’?
What is the most-effective learning technology you came across?
How to handle a ‘pushy’ request for training from a manager or client without any prior analysis?
The answers showed ‘the wisdom of the crowd’ and were good input to explore further during the drinks reception.

View the photos of the event

About the author

Corjan Bast

Started asking ‘Why’ when he was three and never stopped asking, since.

On the wish-list to learn: playing the harmonica, Spanish

Did you like our blog?

Receive fresh insights and inspiration for training providers on your digital doormat to create training with impact.

Subscribe now:

Forms and chat

We use Hubspot to safely collect, save and use your personal data and contact preferences; an example of this is our online chat or forms that you complete in our site.

View details

Check out more content like this

Back to blog overview »

Receive our fresh insights and inspiration
within the world of learning in your mailbox

Forms and chat

We use Hubspot to safely collect, save and use your personal data and contact preferences; an example of this is our online chat or forms that you complete in our site.

View details

Well, you wanted to sign up or get in touch, but it doesn’t seem to work (yet). Maybe a bit annoying, but we want to do this the right way; by getting your permission. Click here to see which cookie-setting you need to accept to fix this.

About us

The learning platform

Learning methods

You know the drill…

We all love to hate or hate to love cookies, the yummy, edible ones and the internetty, online ones. We also use them (the latter) to make our website prettier, faster and better tailored to you. Click ‘Accept all’ if you’re alright with that or make a well informed choice by checking out and adjusting all the specifics under ‘Cookie options’. Mmm, cookie options...

You can find more information on this in our Privacy Statement. | Close

Cookie options

Take a moment...

Your privacy is very important to A New Spring BV. Find below the mandatory and optional approvals you can give us to allow us to process your personal data.

You can find more information on this in our Privacy Statement.

If you wish to withdraw these approvals, please click on ‘forget my approvals’ at the bottom of this page.

Forms and chat

We use Hubspot to safely collect, save and use your personal data and contact preferences; an example of this is our online chat or forms that you complete in our site.

View details

Watch YouTube

Videos on this website are provided from the YouTube or Vimeo streaming video service. YouTube may show you personalised adverts preceding the actual video you want to watch. This consent is optional, but required if you wish to view videos directly on this website.You may wonder, why can I watch vimeo without this consent? Vimeo has an anonymous function which allows us to display the videos without cookies.

View details

Personalised advertising

You probably use Facebook or LinkedIn and also, you probably use Google from time to time to search for stuff. Then, you’ll know that they have advertisements on there. To make those less annoying (i.e. more personalised), we use a number of services on our website.

View details

Website statistics

Feedback is valuable. When it comes to how well our website works for you, feedback is formed by numbers and statistics. That’s why we use Google Analytics and Hotjar to learn how visitors move, click and act on our website. To make it less scary, we anonymise this data before we save it by masking the last few numbers of your IP-address. And we do not allow Google or other parties to use this information for any other purposes.

View details

Functional technologies

You want a pretty and quick website, right? Our (WordPress) website uses a cookie during your visit to our website to check if your browser supports cookies. We kind of need those cookies, because it makes your visit much nicer by remembering personal preferences, quicker performance and loading the correct fonts from Google to properly represent our branding (which we hope you think is pretty, too).

View details

Forget my settings Removed!

Deliver ‘Learning as a Service’ so you future-proof the professionals you serve

What we learned at Future-Proof Your Training Business 2019

1. Networking

2. Transformational learning

3. Didactical models

4. Technology update strategy

5. What financial models can I choose from?

6. What does a shift in L&D skills mean for the training provider?

7. Wrap up via the ‘unpanel’

View the photos of the event

Corjan Bast

Did you like our blog?

Check out more content like this

Scientific insights on learning by Will Thalheimer

Bloom’s Taxonomy: a practical tool for defining your learning objectives

How to make an impact with your training offering

About us

The learning platform

Learning methods