Velocity Made Good » change

The Classroom Is Empty: Learning in the Cloud

Thomas Kraack — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 23:05:35 +0000

The Least Noticeable Difference

Years ago I heard Noel Tichy describe the concept of least noticeable difference. In a nutshell, it means that those inside an industry are often the least likely to observe and respond to significant discontinuous change. One of his examples was the icebox manufacturer whose response to the development and introduction of the refrigerator was to build better, fancier iceboxes. Today, many companies have implicitly organized their employee and customer training around the classroom model, without realizing that the classroom is empty. If they don’t respond to the cultural and technological changes that shape today’s worker, we might well end up with the learning equivalent of that icebox company.

The New Knowledge Worker

“There must be a new generation of knowledge tools to facilitate the growing social nature of work and to allow a more ad hoc and unstructured approach for knowledge work.”

That quote from Michael Fauscette’s recent post stuck with me. Most of the business systems in use today follow designs and processes established decades ago. While they still address the same underlying needs of businesses today, they completely fail to address the nature of knowledge work for the current generation. This is true for everything from ERPs to CRMs, and as I’ll talk about more in depth, enterprise learning.

It’s precisely such discrepancies between the tools at hand and the needs of a new generation that create opportunities for innovators to bring widespread, discontinuous change to an industry - and this is precisely what SaaS and cloud computing companies have done. They have jumped into the breach, providing flexible solutions that can scale rapidly and integrate new technologies as quickly as they’re developed - from mobile applications and platforms, to social networking features, to collaboration tools, and beyond. When a solution this powerful comes along, it’s not just an answer to a problem, it’s a revolution.

The same forces that have brought this revolution to enterprise IT are spurring similar disruptive change in enterprise learning. Similar to cloud computing, this disruption in learning is driven less by technology and more by contextual factors. In the case of the cloud, the disruption is created by the commercial and service models as much as by the core applications. In learning, the central driving force is about content – its creation, form, access and utilization.

Why does this matter to you? Whether you lead an enterprise learning organization or a rapidly growing SaaS company, your employees or customers expect learning and knowledge tools that are in step with the way they work and think. Just as we've learned that for students in the computer age to be successful, they have to be taught with computers, workers in this new generation want access to tools that embrace the mobile, social, crowd-sourced environment they live in.

The More Things Change… Welcome to the Third Wave in Enterprise Learning

The last revolution in learning began perhaps 20 years ago – that journey has brought us a whole industry around e-learning and spawned what is now a relatively mature set of learning management and content management applications and service providers. Interestingly, despite the enormous power and undeniable impact of this change, the central paradigm for learning has stayed the same. Whether it’s sales training, technology certification, SaaS customer training, or anything else, it’s still centrally driven by the classroom model. In a way, the e-learning revolution is to learning what automation was to transaction processing – it sped things up but it didn’t change the model. Measurement, pricing, learner access, and vendor supplied content was still organized around a traditional educational classroom model.

Now a new wave of transformation is at hand, created in part by new technologies, but primarily originating from the adaptation of social media to learning. Ironically, the literature in learning for many years has pointed to just-in-time, real-time learning as a far more powerful delivery model for learning that sticks. Most of us recognize implicitly the power of great mentors and trial-and-error learning. Our challenge has been to find ways to scale that model, and to build in capability to reduce the inherent variability in process and quality – the SaaS and cloud computing models now give us the tools to do that.

What’s Driving the Change in Learning?

There are a number of convergent factors which are building this momentum. They stem from three primary drivers:

The sources of content: Historically, learning content was created by instructional designers, building from source documents and subject matter experts. Increasingly, this model is giving way to user generated content (think YouTube), immediate access to experts (think threaded chat), and sophisticated search capability (think Google). In addition to the ubiquitous capability to connect with colleagues and extended resources through capabilities such as AIM, MSN, Yammer and others. While such sources carry with them their own risks and some companies have been reluctant to endorse such unfiltered sources for fear of liability, it is clear that, supported or not, such content sources will flourish and expand.

The nature of content: There are two somewhat disparate factors in this category. One of the biggest is the migration of gaming and simulation capabilities from entertainment to learning. It’s still early days, but the declining price/value ratios, the capacity for rapid development and the undeniable power for learning from these experiences will spur dramatic expansion of these methodologies. The other major factor is the ability to create and deliver context sensitive learning. This is another migration journey, this time moving capability from e-commerce into learning. Presenting learners with content specifically suited for them, based on a deep understanding of their current performance, style preferences, current tasks, most recent updates to policy or process, and just in time support is all within our grasp. This is especially important in a cloud computing environment, where frequent updates and releases are part of the fabric.

The nature of work and workers: The impact of the Next Gen worker is well documented. We are now perhaps 5 years into a workforce that has grown up with and expects to utilize the capabilities cited above. Perhaps just as important, however, is the nature of work itself. Mike Fauscette’s argument (read his whole post) is that we are moving to a whole set of complexity driven by knowledge work, which defies the standardization that legacy applications have been built to create and support. In a recent meeting on health care service delivery, one of the participants said: “the practice of medicine now is beyond the capability of human cognition.” In ever increasing numbers, today’s jobs and workers live in an environment where it is impossible to perform relying on routine, memory or policy manuals.

Implications of This Change for Learning

This coming change is so large, it can be hard to recognize for what it is. Like the icebox manufacturers of the last century, many in the learning industry are caught up in responding to small pressures without grasping the wide-ranging implications of this new wave. The classroom is empty; learning today has to be recreated where the learners went – in the cloud. And the cloud demands changes in every area: from the roles of learners, to the structure of training, to the technologies that will be needed.

The greatest impact will be the nature of the roles and responsibilities for service providers. While good instructional design will always be needed, new roles will need to evolve which may look more like librarians – one of my former clients took a cue from Foursquare and anointed “mayors” of his online communities. These were not necessarily people designated to training or learning, but deep experts in their field who served as collectors, resource managers and community organizers. Perhaps an even better analog stems from roles in art, museums and libraries: the role of “curator”. The key emerging skill set in learning may well be the ability to organize, maintain and present content versus structured creation of content.

Just as impacted will be commercial and organizing frameworks. Over time, we have evolved a well-developed set of commercial structures for creating, delivering, and acquiring content. But when the unit of measure is no longer a course and the creator of content may no longer be an instructional designer, we will need to develop a whole new set of commercial models. Likewise, our current system of measurements is deeply tied to our current learning paradigm. Both measures of volume and outcomes will need to be examined. How do we apply Kirkpatrick’s model in an environment where learning and doing are tightly bound together? And what are the impacts to the learning BPO marketplace? In other markets, BPO is giving way to KPO – Knowledge Process Outsourcing. Could that be the next iteration for these large service providers?

Finally, what are the implications for the legacy learning technology industry? Already, we are rapidly disintermediating the boundaries between traditional learning management systems (LMS) and newer portal technologies. If the trend continues, these more nimble, flexible learning and knowledge portals will likely replace our current notions of learning management systems. The SaaS model, itself a disruptive model, for acquiring and utilizing these technologies could be but a step on the way to cloud sourcing. And we will see yet another iteration of innovative companies undertaking the reapplication of existing technologies in gaming and e-commerce to the learning marketplace.

Once again disruptive change is coming, driven by new demands of the cloud-based worker and fuelled by changes to learning content and technology. This change will create a new wave of innovation and service capability every bit as big as the last one, and it will affect every aspect of the learning value chain. Some companies will embrace the cloud and everything it offers, while others will be left behind, looking in the classroom, wondering why it’s empty.

Disruptive Forces Converge in Our Industry; We All Stand to Win From the Resulting Innovation

Glenn Oclassen — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:47:55 +0000

I have been thinking a lot lately about the concept of disruption, and its applicability to our industry. One of the many reasons our corporate training industry often is described by analysts as a second tier industry is that the business we are all in is actually thought of as a bunch of separate industries (LMS, content development services, instructor outsourcing, sales training, etc.). We often do not see the disruptive innovation in front of us, because we are seeking to categorize it rather than look at its impact. Yet disruptive innovation is happening right now in our $100+B industry (en toto), and that innovation is fundamentally changing the entire conversation.

We often think of innovation only in terms of technology, yet much of the innovation (albeit enabled by technology) is actually showing up in dramatic changes in process, services, requirements, and approach. Just think- how different are the conversations you are having now, compared to five years ago? How much has your charter changed? The fundamental change driving this innovation in our industry right now is... (wait for it...) that results actually matter. No longer does training measured by the pound count for anything. Training, or enablement, or learning, or knowledge transfer- all means nothing if a demonstrable result is not achieved. How do I deliver the end result with the least amount of input, while delivering the maximum possible output?

We are now entering a period of great disruptive, and discontinuous innovation, and none of it (by its very nature) is being led by the big names you hear about every day. My friend and former boss, Mike Fauscette, has a great primer on the nature of innovation, and his post has great applicability to where we are right now. Disruption makes us think differently, and requires us to transform everything or we get lapped.
Let's just hammer out the list of current massive disruptions to the learning industry organism (a list by no means stack ranked, nor complete):

The current economy changes everything (well, duh... as Wayne would say). But this isn't your father's belt-tightening dot com downturn. 15% budget cuts? No problem- suck it up, tighten the belt, cut the fat, ride it out. 40% budget cut? Okay, now we have to do everything in a dramatically different way, otherwise we are paralyzed (and then 100% budget cuts could be out there if we don't figure this one out). Forget the ol' 'do more with less', we have to do less with less, and yet still deliver the same or often greater impact. So I drop the scary hypothesis on our industry: the only way we can grow is to use the drastic budget cuts to transform our results, our purpose, and our charter. Pain is the catalyst to cure the ills of how we do what we do, rather than just continuing to treat (or mask) the symptoms. Deliver more and greater results, but do less with less. Surgically remove the pointless exercises, no matter how cool or how sacred. Reimagine and rebuild everything else.

Learning technology has become commoditized. Technology is required, but (unlike ten years ago), the most fundamental innovations in this area are actually the ones with the lowest price. I can yammer on all day about the upside-down pricing and TCO of bronze-age client-server LMS products, but the web has literally changed everything in the technology toolset for our business. Think about it- the latest tools, platforms, development environments, and delivery technology all cost a lot less than old stuff, require little to no IT support, and you can be up and running for the enterprise in as little as 30 days. Prototype, test, scale, test, add more users... lather, rinse, repeat. Only the web-based tools and apps allow this cost-effective iterative approach, and it is the web-based apps that are delivering simpler technology at a price point of 50-70% less than the old guard. Tastes great? Less filling? Yup.

User-generated content and social networking/media cannot be stopped. There, I said it. You can't stop it. Don't even try. But you can ride it, use it, leverage it, empower it, filter it, and make it work for good rather than evil. Trying to control social networking is like trying to control the wind; you can only use it to increase your velocity and continuously tack toward the goal (yep- that's a shameless plug). And yet here is the dirty little secret about the power of social learning for your enterprise--- you don't have to build anything but the core business content anymore! Every one of you could kill 80% of the training content you create every year, harness the power of the social enterprise (another good one here from Mike), and focus only on the core stuff. Guess what- the net result is you have delivered MORE and delivered more impact. Don't just think build and deliver; think harvest and propagate. The revolution in our industry will not be televised; it's happening right now on Twitter and Facebook.

Outsourcing is dead; long live smartsourcing. I have worked for learning outsourcing companies, and I have been a consumer of leanring outsourcing for the big companies where I worked. "Throwing it over the wall" to the vendor to save some dough simply doesn't save enough dough anymore. Sure you can save a few percentage points, but real economies of scale (and thus increased marginal efficiencies) come from the productization of learning services, not T&M contracts. Traditional outsourcers can help you save some money doing what you are doing, but they are never incented to help you understand what you should not be doing at all. These companies aren't evil; they are just encumbered with business models focused on utilization and billable hours. For example... smartsourcing does not mean things like doing book production for less- smartsourcing means getting entirely out of the book production business and cutting a royalty commit deal with some publishing house in exchange your company's blessing and authorization. Smartsourcing is a series of deals, resource reallocations, one or two-way partner commitments, and a resulting total smaller business footprint to meet your goals. Outsourcing is about delivering the same business for less money; smartsourcing is about delivering a much leaner, more effective business for a lot less money.

Code is cheap, but knowledge is for rent. The line between products and services is getting fuzzy (and this is good for all of us). Products can be rented by the month. Services are often turned into products. The fastest growing company on the NYSE is technically a 'services' company, even though we all think of it as a web applications company. Subscription changes everything. The equilibrium point between domain expertise, simplicity, and scale is where the value is. Knowledge acquisition remains a meritocracy, but knowledge transfer has become democratized. Specific domain knowledge can almost immediately be turned into a useful toolset- SME's (finally) scale. Proprietary knowledge is useless unless it is shared- and the money is in knowledge distribution, rather than the knowledge itself.

So we can leverage these massive and fundamental disruptions in our industry to deliver the desperately needed innovation in our industry, or we can just go on perfecting the irrelevant. We can, and we must, deliver training and enablement organizations with much lighter footprints, more nimble approcahes, and more effective results. Think for yourself. Question the current dogma. Deliver more impact by saving money. Do less with less, and yet more effectively deliver the results. This industry will never be the same, and you have never had more power. Carpe diem.

The recession is forcing innovation

John Hathaway — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:05:21 +0000

Charlie Gillette provides some great advice in his post Helping your Training Organization Survive and Thrive Through the Recession. His suggestions are definitely very aligned with what we're advising our clients.

There's one point I'm a bit surprised by though:
However, I dropped the “right sizing point” since all organizations already reduce the size of their teams, and I doubt there is much “right sizing” left to complete.

From what we're seeing, I do think there's more "right sizing" to come. And some of those cuts will be deep.

The upside is that it's forcing companies to be more open to strategic change and innovation. When training departments had to cut 10%, they'd just tighten the belt. They'd maybe do a little less or try to find some incremental efficiencies.

But when they lose 30% of their staff, they suddenly have to look for new and better ways to get things done. There's just no way to keep doing things the same way.
They have no choice but to turn physical events into virtual events.
They have no choice but to start turning to external providers for content production.
They have to start asking the hard questions and set a new strategy to accomplish their goals.

What's happening in your company? Do you have more cuts to come? Can you get by with minor improvements? Or is it time for some strategic change?