“My personal write-up from the LT2020 conference”
Learning Technologies London 2020 Highlights
The Learning Technologies Conference & Exhibition 2020 (#LT2020) took place in London last week. Europe’s leading showcase of organisational learning and the technology used to support learning at work. I spent most of my time at the conference and together with a great delegation from Holland, Belgium and the UK.
Here is my review of three conference sessions plus a book launch and some initiatives for ‘next- gen’ L&D professionals.
- Trends: Fall in love with the problem
David Kelly and Chris Pirie - The ‘magical 11’ and ecosystems
Dani Johnson - Make compliance training a people thing
Sharon Claffey Kaliouby and Louise Vamvoukaki - Evidence-informed learning design
Book launch Miriam Neelen and Paul Kirshner. - Arrival of the NextGen learning pros
Trends: Fall in love with the problem
David Kelly and Chris Pirie
I’m a fan of David Kelly and the way he shares his views on the future of our profession. David shares his great insights related to trends, buzzwords and solutions. He always does so combined with the ‘down-to-earth’ intention of exploring and explaining how this new trend or solution might make learning more effective and relevant. David’s definition of a buzzword is brilliant: ‘a buzzword is a word which usage spreads much faster than its understanding’. I won’t repeat the trends David presented, just his additional advice. His first warning is very crucial: ‘How can I dictate to you what the trends are without knowing your context and environment?’. So the advice is to always check if any trend makes sense and how in your specific context. To do so, be aware that good solutions are always about ‘technology and people’ working together. In the end, it’s all about creating an ecosystem of support around the workforce, not just training or any ’shiny new tech’ or ‘killer app’. Great advice from Chris Pirie when it comes to trends and tech is to ‘fall in love with the problem, not with the solution’.
The ‘magical 11’ and ecosystems
Dani Johnson
‘How many systems or apps do you have available to support learning?’ That was one of the opening questions that Dani Johnson from RedThread used during her research on learning ecosystems among learning leaders. ‘Only one; we have our LMS’ was often the answer, combined with confused expressions from her respondents. At the end of the conversation, in general, the number had increased to 11. Dani showed the audience some very interesting examples of the different types of systems and applications—the ecosystem—some organisations use to organise and support learning. And also how these systems are tiedt together—or not. For an effective learning strategy, it is important to be aware of the actual systems in place and how they are connected. If you want to deliberately ‘manage’ or build an ecosystem, Dani shared four steps to consider. The first is Philosophy: you should start with a philosophy, a vision or ambition of what to achieve. This will guide the next steps— Structure, Sustainability and Evolution. Looking at ‘Structure’, Johnson’s advice is to create a structure that makes sense for your specific situation. You can’t just copy an ecosystem of another organisation. For sustainability, having and keeping buy-in from internal stakeholders is key. To keep an ecosystem ‘healthy’, it is common that things change in terms of evolution. User experience, effectiveness, and alignment should be monitored and updated accordingly.
Make compliance training a people thing
Sharon Claffey Kaliouby and Louise Vamvoukaki
The last session at the end of day two of the conference can be a bit of a challenge. That’s why I picked the one on Compliance Training! There is a whole world to win regarding this topic. Sharon Claffey Kaliouby showed us why with some very interesting numbers related to compliance in the financial services industry. Finds and settlements paid to US regulators increased from $32.1 Billion in 2012 to $ 57.7 Billion in 2014! In 2014/2015, the time allowed to complete compliance training modules doubled to 14 hours. Also, learners said that they already knew 50+% (up to 58%) of the course content and that 43% was perceived as ‘not relevant’. Both Sharon and co-presenter Louise Vamvoukaki showed some alternative approaches and their results. One way was to take compliance training out of the LMS and bring it closer to the people. Sharon showed parts of ‘The Big Short’, a movie about the financial crisis in which the actors and ‘guests’ like Selene Gomez explain complex financial terms in an easy-to-understand way. Louise used videos, shot with smartphones, in which co-workers of the company explain topics. This helps to share ‘real stories’ of ‘real people’. Also, social learning was deliberately chosen as an intervention strategy. It’s all about As Louise said, it’s about: ‘creating fires amongst people to burn bad behaviours’.
Evidence-informed learning design
Book launch Miriam Neelen and Paul Kirshner.
This wasn’t a conference session but, in my opinion, an important event at the conference. Mirjam Neelen and Paul Kirshner are the authors of the important ‘3 start learning experience’ blog on evidence-informed practice in learning. Where the blog covers learning more in general, the book focuses on ‘workplace’ learning and development. The evidence-informed practice seems to be a trend in our industry that is gaining traction—and it should! The evidence-informed approach means that as a professional, your work and the choices that you make are based on knowledge and evidence created by research of what works and what doesn’t. In medicine, we find it very logical and normal that people who are ill are treated in ways that have proved to work by clinical research. So why not in Learning and Development? Although it is not as simple as in medicine, there is a lot of knowledge and evidence based on research of what works and what does not in learning. On the other hand, there is a lot of ‘amateurism’ in L&D where ‘learning myths’ and even practices that are not effective are still applied. The book explains how to apply the evidence-informed approach in L&D in a way that is easy to digest. Don’t be afraid that the approach or book is too academic. I think it is a ‘must read’ for every L&D professional.
Arrival of the NextGen learning pros
This year was the first time that Learning Technologies ran a ’30 under 30’ initiative. Inspired by Eliot Masie who has done this for many years now at his event, 30 learning pros aged under 30 were selected to join the conference for a very attractive, low-ticket price to visit the congress. More important: they had extra opportunities to meet and have conversations with each other and with more senior learning leaders from around the world at some formal and informal moments. As I was heading the Belgian/Dutch delegation this year, we a group of about 30 students joined our delegation. Together with my delegation co-leader John May and friend Alfred Remmits, we organised our own informal event for the students via meet-ups with Stella Collins, Steve Wheeler and Bob Mosher. It was highly appreciated by the students and speakers. Let’s do more to support the next generations of learning professionals! It’s for a good purpose and fun too!
