‘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.
