Consumer packaged goods leader Conagra has significantly reduced the time their employees spend searching for information by implementing a centralized knowledge management system. This change underscores the importance of knowledge management in an organization. Similarly, mortgage lender PennyMac has harnessed a knowledge management platform to ensure their customer service agents could swiftly access necessary information. This capability has substantially improved customer support, showcasing the advantages of knowledge management systems in delivering exceptional customer experiences.

These examples illustrate the key benefits of knowledge management systems to businesses by addressing challenges caused by information inaccessibility, thus optimizing operations and enhancing productivity throughout their organizations.

Without a robust knowledge management system, organizations risk losing valuable knowledge and missing critical opportunities to boost efficiency and enhance customer experiences, underscoring the importance of organizational knowledge.

Understanding Knowledge Management and its Benefits

Understanding the foundation of a knowledge management system is crucial before implementing one. Expert Tom Davenport describes knowledge management as the process of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge. This not only showcases the advantages of knowledge management systems but also facilitates structured access to abundant information, promotes company-wide deployment, and fosters open communication—highlighting the knowledge management system benefits to the organization.

A robust knowledge management strategy involves a detailed plan that helps your company collect, store, and distribute information to leverage the benefits of knowledge management systems. Implementing such a strategy can centralize and democratize your company’s knowledge, simplify information searches for employees, and enhance the absorption and enhancement of organizational knowledge—underscored by the importance of knowledge management in an organization.

What Are Knowledge Assets?

Knowledge assets, or intellectual capital, represent the accumulated organizational resources such as databases, content, guides, policies, and procedures. These assets are integral to knowledge management, as they leverage organizational expertise to meet strategic goals. The benefits of these assets are vast, categorizing into experiential, routine, conceptual, and systemic, each playing a vital role in the organization’s knowledge framework.

Knowledge assets can be broken down into four categories:

Experiential knowledge assets

These are knowledge assets attained through the joint, direct involvement of the organization’s members. Known as tacit knowledge, this is gained through personal experience and context. For instance, employees might gain tacit knowledge by shadowing a more experienced coworker or asking questions of a subject matter expert, illustrating the advantages of knowledge management.

Routine knowledge assets

Routine knowledge assets, another type of tacit knowledge, have become embedded in the company’s actions and processes. These include knowledge about company culture or the best ways to perform everyday tasks, showcasing the benefits of knowledge management systems to business.

Conceptual knowledge assets

These are more definitive assets, based on the judgments of customers and employees. Examples include brand designs, customer data such as customer profiles, market research, or customer insights reports, demonstrating the knowledge management system advantages in making informed decisions.

Systemic knowledge assets

Like conceptual knowledge assets, systemic assets are definitive and explicit. They include company policies, procedures, and process documentation—standard documentation that employees across the organization need to be familiar with to perform their jobs well, emphasizing the benefits of knowledge management systems.

By enhancing the focus on specific keywords and clearly defining the role and benefits of knowledge management, this revised section will better target your SEO goals while providing valuable, informative content to readers.

What Are the Key Benefits of Knowledge Management?

Organizations recognize the key benefits of knowledge management systems as essential to their success. Implementing an effective knowledge management system can lead to numerous positive outcomes, which include:

1. Faster access to knowledge and information

Speedy access to vital information can significantly ease the onboarding of new roles like a Director of Customer Service. A centralized knowledge management system ensures that both new hires and experienced employees know exactly where to find the needed information, demonstrating one of the key benefits of knowledge management.

2. Improved efficiency

Efficiency in the workplace means streamlined processes where employees don’t waste time or energy. Knowledge management systems reduce the time spent searching for information, allowing employees to focus on more impactful activities, which is a prime example of the advantages of knowledge management systems.

3. Informed decision-making

Knowledge management equips decision-makers with a comprehensive view of the data and insights available across the organization, facilitating better decision-making. This advantage underscores the importance of knowledge management in an organization by supporting informed and strategic choices.

4. Enhanced customer service

Knowledge management enables customer-facing employees to access the company’s knowledge base swiftly and deliver the information customers need without delay. This capability is crucial in providing timely, consistent solutions to customers, highlighting the benefits of knowledge management systems to business.

5. Cost savings

One of the fundamental advantages of knowledge management systems is cost-effectiveness. Savings arise from reducing the time employees spend searching for information, needing fewer systems to store knowledge, and minimizing errors and duplicated efforts.

6. Increased employee engagement

Creating a knowledge base allows employees to contribute their expertise and insights, fostering a sense of ownership and satisfaction. This engagement is beneficial for both the business and its employees, making it a significant benefit of knowledge management systems.

7. Innovation and growth

A culture of knowledge sharing empowers employees to add to the organization’s knowledge base, enhancing the collective intelligence. This environment fosters innovation and opens up new opportunities for growth, illustrating the key benefits of knowledge management.

8. Better customer experiences

Providing employees with resources to share accurate, detailed, and current knowledge equips them to offer exceptional customer experiences. Negative experiences, such as prolonged holds or inconsistent information, can damage customer trust. Conversely, quick and accurate responses reinforce customer loyalty and trust, showcasing the benefits of knowledge management systems.

Getting Started With Knowledge Management

To capitalize on the benefits of knowledge management systems, it is crucial to first conduct a knowledge audit. This audit involves taking inventory of the knowledge your organization possesses and evaluating how this knowledge is captured, organized, and preserved. Such an audit offers a chance to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your current practices and serves as a foundational step in understanding the importance of knowledge management in an organization.

A thorough assessment of your company’s existing knowledge management capabilities will guide you in determining the necessary actions to develop a successful knowledge management strategy. Remember, knowledge becomes truly valuable only when it is effectively implemented and utilized.

Ensuring the Success of Your Knowledge Management Strategy

To ensure the success of your knowledge management strategy, it’s essential to:

1. Develop a comprehensive plan: This plan should detail the procedures for ongoing knowledge collection, storage, and dissemination within your organization.
2. Encourage a culture of knowledge sharing: Foster an environment where employees are encouraged to share, update, and use knowledge regularly. This enhances the advantages of knowledge management systems by improving collaboration and innovation.
3. Leverage technology effectively: Utilize the right tools and platforms that support the management and accessibility of knowledge, such as a knowledge management platform. This is crucial for maximizing the knowledge management system advantages.
4. Monitor and adapt: Regularly review and adjust your knowledge management practices to align with organizational changes and goals. This dynamic approach helps to maintain the relevance and efficacy of your system.

By integrating these practices, your organization can fully experience the advantages of a knowledge management system, including enhanced decision-making capabilities, increased efficiency, and superior customer service.

The post The Benefits of Knowledge Management in Business appeared first on Bloomfire.

Gary F Fisher and Dean Fido explain what the experience of medical imaging professionals can teach academics about the future impacts and opportunities of generative AI

The post Learning lessons from medical imaging about what AI transformation really means appeared first on Wonkhe.

In this week’s interview, Michael's guest is Dr CONRAD HUGHES, Director-General of the International School of Geneva, or Ecolint.

In the centenary year of its foundation, Dr. Hughes talks about many things including the school’s history, what its pupils and students are taught today and why; and what Ecolint has learned in one hundred years about contributing to being part of “international” Geneva.

 

 

IVY EXEC Research Studies

I was asked by IVY Research Studies what I thought was the future of collaboration. What do you think of my predictions below?

The future of collaboration

The future of collaboration will evolve through the convergence of a range of hand-held and wearable mobile devices informed by UX accessibility principles and social media theory. Multi-modal and immersive blended collaborative spaces will be inclusive. Some trends to look out for in the next 3 to 5 years are:

– single login for cross platform utilisation

– enhancements in multi-media input and output

– personal drones to promote walking collaboration meetings

– the integration of AI generators in personalisation of collaborative spaces

– advancements in the use of templates for collaboration events e.g. brainstorming

– 3D webinar circles blended with face-to-face events

Dead fish market

I have been saying for some time that the VLE and LMS market is in for a dramatic shift. These are two very different markets with two separate sets of products, both global and lucrative. Both are also crammed with legacy technologies and both encourage old and 'not fit for purpose' standards, like SCORM (not even supported), that cripple their ability to adapt to AI-driven approaches to learning. The sector is a bit of a dead fish.

The LMS and VLE market is set for a change, as new AI platforms emerge. The investors are ready, the need is there, we are now moving into the phase when they will be built. It will take time, as incumbents are locked in, often on 3 year licence deals, and they are integrated but things will change. They always do.

Investor hiatus

Investors have been in a hiatus, waiting to see how things shake out. Guess what - they’re starting to shake out. AI is not just the new kid on the block, it is the only new kid on the block. It is THE technology of the age. The top 7 tech stocks, all AI companies, now have a combined market capitalisation of $12.5 trillion, more than the collective gross domestic product of New York, Tokyo, LA, Paris, London, Seoul, Chicago, San Francisco, Osaka, Dallas and Shanghai. This is no fad, neither is it the future – it is now.

The analysts are also all at sea with their grids and lack of foresight. In truth investors that bought into the LMS market are struggling to realise the revenues and profits. Some very large companies are struggling with their shareprice and meeting revenue and profit expectations. Even at the medium and lower levels, there is suspicion that value is falling. The learning content creation companies should be using AI (and are) and so prices will plummet. It is difficult to see why investors would put big valuations on dated content or bespoke production. Would you invest in a video production learning company having seen Sora? A major Hollywood investor has just pulled $850 million from a studio build. Investors in online learning will be thinking along the same lines.

Accenture buys Udacity

That brings us to Accenture buying Udacity (for peanuts) and saying they plan to invest $1 billion (yes $1 BILLION) in LearnVantage – an AI-first learning platform. Interesting move. They say it will be an AI platform... then make the mistake of saying it will primarily teach AI. That makes no sense. It is the old thinking of - let’s build a pile of courses. Consultancies don’t build good tech – neither did Udacity - and if Accenture lose their objectivity as solutions consultants then they do themselves damage. You can’t be a consultant then turn and say – by the way the 'optimal' solution is our platform. 

However, this doesn’t really matter, as this is just the first line in the sand in a major market shift. If they don’t succeed, someone else will. The huge tech companies could do this and may well enter the market but their eyes are on bigger fish - productivity tools. They are never good in the learning market. They're not looking for gold, as they make a ton from selling the shovels.

The LMS is dead, long live the LMS!

Some love them, some hate them. Some love to hate them.

1. Zombie LMS

Some organisations have a Zombie LMS. At the very mention of its name, managers and learners roll their eyes. Organisations can get locked into LMS contracts that limit their ability and agility to adopt innovations. Many an LMS lies like an old fossil, buried in the enterprise software stack, churning away like an old heating system – slow, inefficient and in constant need of repair. Long term licences, inertia and the cost of change, see the organisation locked into a barely functional world of half-dead software and courses.

2. Functional creep

Our LMS does everything. “Social?” “Yes, that as well”. Once the LMS folk get their hooks into you, they extend their reach into all sorts of areas where they don’t belong. Suddenly they have a ‘chat’ offer, that is truly awful – but part of the ‘complete LMS solution’. For a few extra bucks they solve all of your performance support, corporate comms, HR and talent management problems, locking you bit by bit into the deep dungeon they’ve built for your learners, never to see the light again.

3. Courses, of course

The LMS also encourages an obsession with courses. I’m no fan of Maslow’s clichéd pyramid of needs but he did come up with a great line, ”If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” That is precisely the problem with the LMS - give an organisation an LMS and every problem is solved by a ‘course’. This has led to a culture of over-engineered, expensive and long-winded course production that aligned with the use of the LMS and not with organisational or business needs. What we end up with are a ton of crap leadership, DEI and complaince courses.

4. Cripples content

Throw stuff into some VLEs and LMSs and it spits out some really awful looking stuff. Encouraged to load up half-baked course notes, teachers and trainers knock out stuff that conforms solidly to that great law of content production – GIGO – garbage in garbage out.  Graphic, text, graphic, text, multiple-choice question….. repeat. The Disneyfication of learning has happened with tons of hokey, cartoon and speech bubble stuff. Out goes simulations and anything that doesn’t conform to the simple, flat, linear content that your LMS can deliver or even worse.... gamification - some infantile game that feels as though it os designed fro 10 year olds!

5. One size fits all

With the rise of AI, adaptive and personalised learning, the LMS becomes an irritation. They don’t cope well with systems that deliver smart, personalised learning pathways. The sophisticated higher-level learning experiences are locked out by the limited ability of the LMS to cope with such innovation. The LMS becomes a sort of cardboard SCORM template through which all content must fit. But it’s the ‘learn by doing’, performance support and experiential learning that most LMSs really squeeze out of the mix.

6. Compliance hell

We all know what happened in compliance training. L&D used the fallacious argument that the law and regulators demand oodles of long courses. In fact, no law and very few regulators demand long, bad, largely useless online courses. This doesn’t work. In fact, it is counterproductive, often creating a dismissive reaction among learners. Yet the LMS encourages this glib solutionism.

7. Completion cul-de-sacs

With the LMS, along came SCORM, a ‘standard’ that in one move pushed everyone towards ‘course completion’. Learning via an LMS was no longer a joyous thing. It became an endless chore, slogging through course after course until complete. Gone is the idea that learning journeys can be interesting, personal affairs. SCORM is a completion whip that is used to march learners in lock-step towards completion.

8. Limits data

Given the constraints of most LMSs, there is the illusion that valuable data is being gathered, when in fact, it’s merely who does what course, when, and did they complete. As the world gets more data hungry, the LMS may be the very thing that stops valuable data from being gathered, managed and used.

To be fair...

To be fair a VLE or LMS was often the prime mover for shifting people away from pure classroom delivery. This is still an issue in many organisations but at least they effected a move, at the enterprise level, away from often lacklustre and expensive classroom courses. In fact, with blended learning, you can manage your pantheon of delivery channels, including classroom delivery, through your LMS (classroom planning is often included). As enterprise software they also scale, control what can be chaos and duplication, provide consistency and strategic intent. You do need to identify and manage your people, store stuff, deliver stuff and manage data and nn LMS is simply a single integrated piece of software. You may want to do without one but you’ll end up integrating the other things you use – and that will be, a sort of LMS. There are also security issues which they handle 

There will always be a need for single solutions. We can seem however that this has descended into the mess that is the all-embracing, death-clutch that is ‘Talent management’.

Conclusion

Organisations need enterprise software. We’ve been through the course repository model, that got stuck in the rut of rather flat e-learning. The new model is more dialogue than monologue. The incumbent VLE and LMS models need to adapt quickly or be replaced by those who do AI well. The VLE and LMS market looks like something out of the early 2000s, that’s because it is something out of that era. Many of these companies started then and having moved from client-server structure to the cloud, still have legacy code and lack the flexibility to work in this new world. My guess is that some stand a chance, many do not. If all you have done is add some prompted creation tools to your offer – forget it.

We have a chance to break out of this repository of courses model, crippled by box-ticking compliance, impoverished on data by SCORM to create more dynamic platforms that cope with formal and informal learning, also performance support, Tutorbots and data that informs learning and personal development. AI is the technology that appears to promise some sort of escape velocity from these repositories. You can already feel the blood drain from the old model as the new tools become available and improve so quickly.

A formula for calculating learning efficacy, (E), considering the importance of each criterion and the specific ratings for peer learning, is:

This abstract formula provides a way to quantify learning efficacy, considering various educational criteria and their relative importance (weights) for effective learning.

Variable	Definition	Description
S	Scalability	Ability to accommodate a large number of learners
I	Information fidelity	Quality and reliability of information
C	Cost effectiveness	Financial efficiency of the learning method
F	Feedback quality	Quality of feedback received
U	Uniformity	Consistency of learning experience

Weights for each variables are derived from empirical data and expert consensus.

All values are on a scale of 0-4, with a “4” representing the highest level.

Scalability	Information fidelity	Cost-benefit	Feedback quality	Uniformity
4.00	3.00	4.00	3.00	1.00

Here is a summary table including all values for each criterion, learning efficacy calculated with weights, and Efficacy-Scale Score (ESS) for peer learning, cascade training, and expert coaching.

The Efficacy-Scale Score (ESS) can be calculated by multiplying the efficacy (E) of a learning method by the number of learners (N).

This table provides a detailed comparison of the values for each criterion across the different learning methods, the calculated learning efficacy values considering the specified weights, and the Efficacy-Scale Score (ESS) for each method.

Type of learning	Scalability	Information fidelity	Cost effectiveness	Feedback quality	Uniformity	Learning efficacy	# of learners	Efficacy-Scale Score
Peer learning	4.00	2.50	4.00	2.50	1.00	3.20	1000	3200
Cascade training	2.00	1.00	2.00	0.50	0.50	1.40	500	700
Expert coaching	0.50	4.00	1.00	4.00	3.00	2.20	60	132

Of course, there are many nuances in individual programmes that could affect the real-world effectiveness of this simple model. The model, grounded in empirical data and simplified to highlight core determinants of learning efficacy, leverages statistical weighting to prioritize key educational factors, acknowledging its abstraction from the multifaceted nature of educational effectiveness and assumptions may not capture all nuances of individual learning scenarios.

Peer learning

The calculated learning efficacy for peer learning, , is 3.20. This value reflects the weighted assessment of peer learning’s strengths and characteristics according to the provided criteria and their importance.

By virtue of scalability, ESS for peer learning is 24 times higher than expert coaching.

Cascade training

For Cascade Training, the calculated learning efficacy, , is approximately 1.40. This reflects the weighted assessment based on the provided criteria and their importance, indicating lower efficacy compared to peer learning.

Cascade training has a higher ESS than expert coaching, due to its ability to achieve scale.

Learn more: Why does cascade training fail?

Expert coaching

For Expert Coaching, the calculated learning efficacy, , is approximately 2.20. This value indicates higher efficacy than cascade training but lower than peer learning.

However, the ESS is the lowest of the three methods, primarily due to its inability to scale. Read this article for a scalability comparison between expert coaching and peer learning.

Image: The Geneva Learning Foundation Collection © 2024

Confusion about the path to success obscures the obvious. There are four factors of success. Not three. Not five. Four and only four. The path is the same for everyone.

Performance management systems: South Korean study shows authentic leadership positively impacts job satisfaction and performance management participation
Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.-

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This study from South Korea first confirmed that authentic leadership positively affects job satisfaction. The results also showed that employees’ participation in developing performance measures partially mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and job satisfaction.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

1 Number one is not a surprise because you may hardly remember an annual top list that was not headed by the 7 Habits. Its decades of popularity sometimes make you wonder: Is anyone left on the planet who doesn’t know (or at least downloaded) the summary? If so – here’s the link. Book Summary To be…

Source

The IEC is pleased to welcome Uruguay as its newest Associate Member. The Instituto Uruguayo de Normas Tecnicas (UNIT) will now host the IEC National Committee of Uruguay.

The post Leading the Way: Ultimate L&D Leader’s Guide For Change Management first appeared on Xyleme.

“The ignorance of how to use new knowledge stockpiles exponentially.” —Marshall McLuhan

For the past decade I have promoted the idea that a job is not the same as meaningful work. Most jobs are refillable and replaceable. One worker leaves, another one fills the job position. Our work can help to define us, but our jobs should never define us.

I discuss sensemaking in my PKM framework, though meaning-making is much more important and is related to self-determination theory that states there are three universal human drivers — autonomy, competence, and relatedness. We need some control over our lives, we want to be good at something, and we want to feel that we can relate to other people. These three drivers are what make us do what we do. They support meaning-making.

Dave Gurteen says that, “Meaning-making and sense-making are often used synonymously, but they are different — Meaning-making is the process by which we interpret situations or events in the light of our previous knowledge and experience. It is a matter of identity: it is who we understand ourselves to be in relation to the world around us.”

Even workplaces that support sensemaking often ignore meaning-making. Why are we doing this work in the first place? — is a question that is seldom asked. Even more antithetical to the capitalist, number-crunching workplace is that work should be playful. As Albert Einstein stated, “Combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought.”

Sometimes play requires time away. It often requires reflection, in which agency is born. We require agency, that part of us that makes us human, that allows us to direct ourselves in solid decision, in order to guide our natural playful selves into the whatever work we deem meaningful. —Kourosh Dini, 2022

Instead of making sense of our lives, our world, and our work, we will be auto-tuned for the ‘correct’ perspective. As we get inundated with new knowledge and information regurgitated by large language models and generative pre-trained transformers — time for meaning-making becomes critical.

I will leave the final thought to the folks at Gaping Void — “You aren’t here to find meaning. You are here to create meaning.”

 

Note: this is a post reflecting on one of the modules of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. You can see all of the related posts in this category. 

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Similar-sounding terms which are conceptually similar are tricky to deal with when you’re new to them. So this post is to help me tease apart the differences between systemic change, systematic change, system change, and situational change.

Briefly:

• Systemic change refers to deep, fundamental change in the nature or operation of a system.
• Systematic change pertains to ordered, methodical change following a specific process or protocol.
• System change is a broad term for any change affecting a system, including systemic or systematic changes.
• Situational change relates to changes in response to specific circumstances or environments; these are often more immediate and reactive.

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Let’s dig in a bit more:

Systemic change

Systemic change involves altering the underlying principles, relationships, and processes that define how the system operates. In the context of Systems Thinking in Practice (STiP), systemic change is about shifting the way a system behaves or functions at a deep level, often in response to complex issues or emergent properties. It’s not just a change within the system, but a change of the system itself.

Systematic change

As I explained in my very first post about this module, systemic and systematic change sound very similar. However, the latter is about working step-by-step in a more methodical and planned way to try and effect change. Working systematically often involves following a specific methodology or set of procedures to achieve a desired outcome. With STiP, this might involve methodical approaches to problem-solving or implementing changes within a system.

System change

This is a general term which can encompass both systemic and systematic changes. ‘System change’ is a popular term at the moment, especially in relation to the climate emergency but it can be used from everything from minor adjustments to major transformation in the components, structure, or functioning of a system.

Situational change

If system change is general, then situational change is more context-specific, often referring to changes in particular situations or environments. The aim is less about changing the overall system and more about adapting or responding to specific circumstances or events. As a result, situational change is often reactive, dealing with immediate issues or problems as they arise.

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Image: DALL-E 3

Note: this is a post reflecting on one of the modules of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. You can see all of the related posts in this category. 

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A 2010 research report by The Work Foundation entitled Exceeding Expectation: the principles of outstanding leadership outlined differences between good and outstanding leaders. For the purposes of this post, I’ve stuck to the executive summary (Tamkin, et al., 2010) which outlines three principles of outstanding leadership:

1. They think and act systemically: they see things as a whole rather than compartmentalising. They connect the parts by a guiding sense of purpose. They understand how action follows reaction, how climate is bound and unravelled by acts, how mutual gains create loyalty and commitment, how confidence provides a springboard to motivation and creativity and how trust speeds interactions and enables people to take personal risks and succeed.
2. They see people as the route to performance: they are deeply people and relationship centred rather than just people-oriented. They give significant amounts of time and focus to people. For good leaders, people are one group among many that need attention. For outstanding leaders, they are the only route to sustainable performance. They not only like and care about people, but have come to understand at a deep level that the capability and engagement of people is how they achieve exceptional performance
3. They are self-confident without being arrogant: self-awareness is one of their fundamental attributes. They are highly motivated to achieve excellence and are focused on organisational outcomes, vision and purpose. But they understand they cannot create performance themselves. Rather, they are conduits to performance through their influence on others. The key tool they have to do this is not systems and processes, but themselves and the ways they interact with and impact on those around them. This sense of self is not ego-driven. It is to serve a goal, creating a combination of humility and self-confidence. This is why they watch themselves carefully and act consistently to achieve excellence through their interactions and through their embodiment of the leadership role.

Or, more briefly:

1. Systemic thinking — outstanding leaders view organisations holistically, understanding the interconnectivity of components and actions. They create an environment of shared purpose, recognising how mutual gains and trust help motivation and creativity.
2. Focus on people — outstanding leaders place the utmost importance on people and relationships as the key to sustainable performance. They invest a lot of time in nurturing team capabilities and engagement, recognising that people are central to achieving excellence.
3. Appropriate self-confidence — outstanding leaders leaders balance self-confidence with humility, focusing on organisational goals while understanding their role as facilitators. This approach involves self-awareness and a commitment to influencing others positively, avoiding arrogance.

Thinking about my own career history, perhaps like most people I’ve had the misfortune of experiencing more poor and average leadership than good and outstanding. However, I can think of a couple of examples of outstanding leadership which would certainly back up these three points. In both cases, the people involved were understanding of the differences between the people they led, meaning that they had to help create an environment where all could flourish.

At the same time, in each case there was very much a ‘team’ ethos with an understanding of how we both related to one another and to the bigger picture. With one of the examples, the outstanding leader made us very aware of some of the politics involved and how they were representing and positioning us (as a team) in relation to this. I think that is a good example of systemic thinking.

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A search of both the academic and popular literature around systems thinking in relation to leadership brings back a whole range of results. I was struck by the number of links to GOV.UK web page there were, which took me to a list of National Leadership Centre research publications. Of the 19 listed, eight mention ‘systems’ in the title, including one entitled Systems Leadership: How systems thinking enhances systems leadership by Catherine Hobbs and Gerald Midgley, both from the Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull.

The authors set the scene by talking about “systemic leadership” which they define as “systems leadership + systemic thinking” (Hobbs & Midgley, 2020, p.1). This is required because of the ‘wicked problems’ facing society:

Systems leadership views organisations as composed of interrelated parts, and it focuses on coordination of these parts to achieve a given purpose. When the issue being addressed is too complex for a single organisation to deal with alone, multiple organisations can become involved. Nevertheless, the idea is the same: constituent parts of an existing system must be ‘joined up’ into a greater whole.

(Hobbs & Midgley, 2020, p.1)

It’s a short paper at only four pages, but I was still surprised not to see any mention of anything resembling ‘B-ball’ and the role of the practitioner. Instead, a range of approaches is discussed with the focus on the importance of joined-up action. ‘System change’ here seems to be used systemically but the focus seems to be on changing the way (i.e. systematic) way that ‘delivery’ is done by public-sector bodies. Instead, argue the authors, we need an “exploratory, design-led, participative, facilitative, and
adaptive” future (Hobbs & Midgley, 2020, p.4).

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Although I’ve never worked directly in government, as an informed (and often concerned) British citizen I have a keen interest in how it works. I’m also connected with a lot of people who work in various government departments. So I was interested to stumble across guidance on the GOV.UK site for civil servants entitled Systems Leadership Guide: how to be a systems leader. Although the word ‘systemic’ is mentioned six times in the overview, the approach outlined seems to be more systematic in nature.

For example, the following diagram seems like quite a standard circular diagram that you would see on ‘leadership’ slides in every sector around the world:

The linked page, The civil servant’s systems thinking journey, goes into more detail with the above steps to make them feel less prescriptive. In addition, a systems thinking toolkit and systems thinking case study bank provide seem useful. What is still missing is discussion of the practitioner reflecting on their own ‘tradition of understanding’ and biases.

Although there is discussion of systems being both things you can see and things you can’t, the assumption still seems to be that systems are ‘out there’ in the world, and that systems thinking is an approach to increase performance or outcomes. It seems to be just another approach:

Systems thinking can be used alongside existing project management and stakeholder management techniques like Agile, P3M and Prince2 to strengthen them for dealing with complexity, uncertainty, multiple perspectives and broader interdependencies.

(The civil servant’s systems thinking journey, 2023)

The thought of using Prince2 alongside systemic approaches actually blows my mind.

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One of the realisations I’ve had since starting this module is how pernicious the provision of pretty diagrams is. As with the GOV.UK example above, with systems thinking it’s problematic not to start with the individual practitioner reflecting on their own role in the world.

So how do we define what ‘systems thinking’ is. Can we use a systems thinking approach to define it? Now, given that I wrote my doctoral thesis explicitly trying to avoid ‘one definition to rule them all’, you’d expect me to appreciate an approach (Arnold & Wade, 2015) which uses a systemigram instead of simply presenting a contextless word-based definition.

Although potentially ‘scarier’ for those new to systems thinking (like me!) than the GOV.UK diagram, it’s so much richer.The resulting definition of systems thinking is: “The capability of identifying and understanding systems, predicting their behaviors, and devising modifications to them in order to produce desired effects.”

This may not be exactly the definition I would choose, but I appreciate being able to see how they arrived at it. It’s the kind of thing I’ve called for with frameworks for years. Just as with learning a new language, developing a systemic sensibility involves understanding what is and what is not useful when it comes to resources and discussion of systems practice.

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References

• Arnold, R.D. and Wade, J.P. (2015) ‘A definition of systems thinking: a systems approach’, Procedia Computer Science, 44, pp. 669–678. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2015.03.050.
• Hobbs, C. and Midgley, G. (2020). How systems thinking enhances systems leadership. National Leadership Centre. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-leadership-centre-research-publications (Accessed: 29 January 2024).
• Systems Leadership Guide: how to be a systems leader (2023) GOV.UK. 12 January. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/systems-leadership-guide-for-civil-servants/systems-leadership-guide-how-to-be-a-systems-leader (Accessed: 29 January 2024).
• Tamkin, P., Pearson, G., Hirsh, W. and Constable, S. (2010). Exceeding Expectation: the principles of outstanding leadership. Work Foundation. Available at: https://www.bayes.city.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/117031/ExceedingExpectationexecsumm.pdf.pdf (Accessed: 29 January 2024).
• The civil servant’s systems thinking journey (2023) GOV.UK. 12 January. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/systems-thinking-for-civil-servants/journey (Accessed: 29 January 2024).

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Image: DALL-E 3

Critical thinking is often cited as one of the most valuable future work skills. How do critical thinking skills manifest themselves in the workplace? Learn about the mindsets, habits and demeanors that make critical thinkers stand out. Table of Contents Intellectual empathy involves the capacity to understand and appreciate the perspectives, thoughts and feelings of others…

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International Data Corp. estimated that US $118 billion was spent globally in 2022 to purchase artificial intelligence hardware, software, and data services. IDC has predicted the figure will nearly triple, to $300 billion, by 2026. But public procurement systems are not ready for the challenges of procuring AI systems, which bring with them new risks to citizens.

To help address this challenge IEEE Standards Association has introduced a pioneering standard for AI procurement. The standard, which is in development, can help government agencies be more responsible about how they acquire AI that serves the public interest.

Governments today are using AI and automated decision-making systems to aid or replace human-made decisions. The ADM systems’ judgments can impact citizens’ access to education, employment, health care, social services, and more.

The multilayered complexity of AI systems, and the datasets they’re built on, challenge people responsible for procurement—who rarely understand the systems they’re purchasing and deploying. The vast majority of government procurement models worldwide have yet to adapt their acquisition processes and laws to the systems’ complexity.

To assist government agencies in being better stewards of public-use technology, in 2021 the IEEE Standards Association approved the development of a new type of socio-technical standard, the IEEE P3119 Standard for the Procurement of AI and Automated Decision Systems. The standard was inspired by the findings of the AI and Procurement: A Primer report from the New York University Center for Responsible AI.

The new, voluntary standard is designed to help strengthen AI procurement approaches with due-diligence processes to ensure that agencies are critically evaluating the kinds of AI services and tools they acquire. The standard can provide agencies with a method to require transparency from AI vendors about associated risks.

IEEE P3119 also can help governments use their procuring power to shape the market—which could increase demand for more responsible AI solutions.

A how-to guide

The standard aims to help government agencies strengthen their requirements for AI procurement. Added to existing regulations, it offers complementary how-to guidance that can be applied to a variety of processes including pre-solicitation and contract monitoring.

Existing AI procurement guidelines such as the ones from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the World Economic Forum, and the Ford Foundation cover AI literacy, best practices, and red flags for vetting technology vendors. The IEEE P3119 standard goes further by providing guidance, for example, on determining whether a problem requires an AI solution. It also can help identify an agency’s risk tolerance, assess a vendor’s answers to questions about AI, recommend curated AI-specific contract language, and evaluate an AI solution across multiple criteria.

IEEE is currently developing such an AI procurement guidance, one that moves beyond principles and best practices to detailed process recommendations. IEEE P3119 explicitly addresses the technical complexity of most AI models and the potential risks to society while also considering the systems’ capacity to scale for deployment in much larger populations.

Discussions in the standards working group centered around ways to identify and evaluate AI risks, how to mitigate risks within procurement needs, and how to provoke transparency about AI governance from vendors, with AI-specific best practices for solicitations and contracts.

The IEEE P3119 processes are meant to complement and optimize existing procurement requirements. The primary goal for the standard is to offer government agencies and AI vendors ways to adapt their procurement practices and solicited proposals to maximize the benefits of AI while minimizing the risks.

The standard is meant to become part of the “request for proposals” stage, integrated with solicitations in order to raise the bar for AI procurement so that the public interest and citizens’ civil rights are proactively protected.

Putting the standard into practice, however, could be challenging for some governments that are dealing with historical regulatory regimes and limited institutional capacity.

A future article will describe the need to test the standard against existing regulations, known as regulatory sandboxes.

The following is excerpted from Watkins, K.E. and Marsick, V.J., 2023. Chapter 4. Learning informally at work: Reframing learning and development. In Rethinking Workplace Learning and Development. Edward Elgar Publishing.

This chapter’s final example illustrates the way in which organically arising IIL (informal and incidental learning) is paired with opportunities to build knowledge through a combination of structured education and informal learning by peers working in frequently complex circumstances.

Reda Sadki, president of The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), rethought L&D for immunization workers in many roles in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Adapting to technology available to participants from the countries that joined this effort, Sadki designed a mix of experiences that broke out of the limits of “training” as it was often designed.

He addressed, the inability to scale up to reach large audiences; difficulty to transfer what is learned; inability to accommodate different learners’ starting places; the need to teach learners to solve complex problems; and the inability to develop sufficient expertise in a timely way. (Marsick et al., 2021, p. 15)

This led his organization, to invite front-line staff from all levels of immunization systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to create and share new learning in response to the social and behavioral challenges they faced.

Sadki designed L&D for “in-depth engagement on priority topics,” insights into “the raw, unfiltered perspectives of frontline staff,” and peer dialogue that “gives a voice to front-line workers” (The Geneva Learning Foundation, 2022).

RSS (real simple syndication) is faster and less time consuming than using a search engine, surfing the web, and then creating a huge list of favourites or bookmarks. It’s been around for a long time and many websites support it. Several of the large platforms, like Facebook, do not, because RSS is an open standard and it is difficult to track users with it. If you listen to podcasts on a ‘podcatcher’ then you are likely using RSS.

Big tech have ignored RSS and are not keen on helping people use it, but many news sites still have RSS feeds to which anyone can subscribe. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC ) has a multitude of RSS feeds but does not advertise these or help readers use a feed reader [see image below]. Instead, for the past decade CBC has relied on the platform monopolists at Meta, Alphabet, and X, and these are now biting them in their media butts as a result of Canada’s Bill C18 which big media supported.

Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, has written many posts on Bill C18. Basically it requires large platforms, like Meta and Google, to pay for Canadian news feeds. But Meta has decided that it will no longer allow Canadian news links, including The Beaverton satirical news site.

Many Canadians access news content through digital intermediaries. Bill C-18 would enact the Online News Act (the Act), which proposes a regime to regulate digital platforms that act as intermediaries in Canada’s news media ecosystem in order to enhance fairness in the Canadian digital news market. The Bill introduces a new bargaining framework intended to support news businesses to secure fair compensation when their news content is made available by dominant digital news intermediaries and generates economic gain. It seeks to support balanced negotiations between the businesses that operate dominant digital news intermediaries and the businesses responsible for the news outlets that produce this news content. —Government of Canada

Canadian news outlets are not happy with this situation and are calling for ‘fairness’, as the lack of eyeballs from Facebook is hurting their business. It goes to show that we should be careful who we get in bed with to distribute our work. Meta and Google can change the rules at any time. Cory Doctorow explained the situation on CBC’s The Current [19 minutes]— the problem is not that these platforms are stealing content or linking to it, but rather that they collude to defraud publishers by owning the entire ad-supported ecosystem because they represent the buyers, the sellers, the marketplace, and they are publishers and advertisers in their own right.

Our national broadcaster should not even be involved with this marketplace. Profit-sharing with Meta only gets the CBC more deeply involved with this corporate giant.

So maybe it’s time we all got back to the basics and curated our own news, instead of having it pushed to us by an algorithm.

Most blogs and many news sites have an RSS feed. An aggregator — AKA feed reader — can help keep track of other blogs so you no longer have to visit each site. New posts will appear in the feed reader. I use Inoreader, but there are many others. Mac users can get a free desktop reader — ViennaRSS

For example, to find if a site has an RSS feed, enter it on Inoreader (add new), or you can use a tool like the Get RSS Extension for Chrome or Firefox. Many people have recently left Twitter and upwards of half of those have shifted to Mastodon, an open source federation of servers sharing the same protocols. I am active there — @harold. One can also subscribe to any Mastodon feed by adding .rss to the address, e.g. mastodon.social/@harold.rss — these open protocols support each other!

One can also subscribe to #hashtags by appending .rss — e.g. https://mastodon.social/tags/pkmastery.rss

Here is a list of Canadian journalism sites that share on Mastodon.

Get started with one of these feed readers — Blogging Wizard

The post Why Pearson Is Complicit appeared first on Phil Hill & Associates.

Deep thinking question. Can you think or name one SaaS or non-SaaS solution where the market for that solution overwhelmingly believes it is only Legacy and thus an antiquated offering best found in the diggings of Troy; or outdated, non-useful because it is called “X” and thus the entire industry of said “X” is therefore not the “latest”; or that the end-user that accesses it, needs this or that, to enhance their experience, and the “Xs” can’t do it; or that “Y” which pitches ABC, but in reality, doesn’t entirely do all that, is still better than “X”?

I thought about it, and my answer was no. I can’t even think of a type of solution that still has a large audience base; a lot of folks love it and support it; it offers, as a whole, a lot of the latest capabilities and technology around it, and can offer a strong UI/UX for the end-user. Not one. I can’t think of a solution that does all that, and yet, continues to get pounded that it is none of that; or that just the name of the type is enough to make people think that it is none of those things. Not one.

Yet here we are. Naysayers continue to pontificate on information that is just wrong. The premise that an LXP, for example, does so much more than an LMS is 100% untrue. LXPs offer assigned learning. They, thus are not learner-centric, the moment the client decides to go assigned learning. If you want to provide only compliance content to your learners, you can. If you want to limit the scope of what they can take and experience, you can. The skills are, overall, not as strong nor advanced, compared to many LMSs in the market. The vast majority of LXPs today are within a learning platform, or an LMS or as an add-on option to either of those offerings. I should add the Learning Platforms is the second biggest segment because a Personal Dev Platform, or Employee Experience Platform, where learning is the core component, is in essence, a learning platform.

Regardless, the number of 100% true LXPs, as they were defined, is minimal in the entire industry of learning systems. The others? Some have a content marketplace; others don’t – but all claim they are an LXP. The core for them is the UI – which is either GRID or Playlist – and thus, they pitch they are an LXP. The funny thing here is that there are all types of learning systems, including LMSs that have that same UI.

Content curation? LMSs (as a whole) have a lot of capabilities around this, and ditto for many learning platforms. LXPs? Minute. Do you want to tap into a bookmark extension and pull down content tied around whatever content you have, OR 100% free? Besides the two original LXPs, I haven’t seen any others in the “we call ourselves an LXP” do it. I have seen a PDP do it and some LMSs. Do you want to find content on the internet and pull it right into your learning system (sans an extension)? I see this more with LMSs and Learning Platforms, than an LXP (again, aside from Degreed, and EdCast – and the latter does a so-so job on it).

Do you want the top level of skills and capabilities in the industry? The most that are out there (I base this on my template, which has more than 100 skill capabilities) is Cornerstone. An LMS. Higher than Degreed, the original LXP. Higher than EdCast. Higher than even Pluralsight, which is, uh, a learning platform. Docebo, an LMS, scores around 62%. Cornerstone, BTW is around 90%. Both are LMSs. Those other LXPs? Not even in the 35% range. Thrive, a former legit LXP, is now an LMS.

The best Learning Platform with a legit LXP in it is probably Juno Journey. They had it early on, and it continues to improve – i.e. the entire system that is, not just the LXP, which is there, does a good job, but the system is designed to go way beyond that. I would even argue that this Learning Platform could easily slide into an LMS. The second who does a solid job and is within an LMS, is Bealink.

Fuse does an outstanding job with bringing in content, free, and using a very cool search capability, has always had this unique UI/UX around communities, which, if they streamlined them down, could go cohorts, and their data visualization rocks. They are a Learning Platform, but again, can easily slide into an LMS (which I think they are, but that’s another story).

LMSs are coming into the market all the time. More in, then less out. If they were dated wonky systems that can’t do as much as an LXP, they wouldn’t be rolling in. I didn’t see one new 100% LXP at LTUK. Nor at DevLearn. The dominant player in each of those shows was an LMS, followed by a learning platform.

In my upcoming NexGen Leader Pack (coming in late July), the majority are LMS vendors.

The Comments

I posted on my LinkedIn Learning thread about this upcoming blog post and one about whether you really needed an LXP, and the comments rolled in. The ones that caught my eye more were the ones that presented such perspectives as (I am paraphrasing these)

• Learner wants access to content in a moment of need; tailored to them
• LXPs forced LMSs to upgrade their UI/UX
• LXP focuses on learners and their continuous development (The LMS doesn’t do this)

These were both fair statements and not the first time, I’ve read such points of view.

Let me address each one

The learner wants access to content in a moment of need, tailored to them

100% agree, but any learning system can do this. Seriously, this comes to whomever bought the system, and how they want to use it. It’s not the system’s fault here. If I want to do assigned learning with specific due dates, I can do in an LXP, Learning Platform, EXP, Talent Dev Platform, PDP, and yes, LMS. If I want to offer my learners to pick the content they are interested in, I can, without assigned learning. My LMS did, back in 2000. And actually, even LMSs, I were aware of, could do the same thing. 100% of online courses were doable and available. As in time of need, this is precisely why an LMS was created. Because, ILT, on-site, was the only way, the main way to learn (excluding the guides nobody read) didn’t and still doesn’t offer that. Web-Based Training – the term coined back then to refer to e-learning which folks now misuse, was all about “just in time learning, ” “learn when I want to learn, 24/7,” “self-paced, not driven by someone else,” “you can re-learn or go back and learn over and over again, as much and as often you want.”

The systems back then, and especially the courses, were effective in instructional design and e-learning developed; thus, you could get really interactive and engaging content if you so choose. Or you could do total static (which I still see a lot of today). As the client, you could choose whether you wanted 100% let folks pick, some assigned, some picked, or all assigned. With any learning system on the market, you can still do this today. And FWIW, the majority of people in white-collar/office professions, access their learning system, outside of the workplace. This isn’t new. It was that way even back in 2000. I think as systems evolve with Gen-AI and the LLM, tailored can get even better – but we are still so very early; any vendor that says “100% we do it,” there are always, “What about this?” LLMs are not perfect. So never assume they are.

LXPs forced LMSs to upgrade their UI/UX

A common conjecture, I often hear. I often see this, whereas with new means better from a UI/UX. A fresh look is always needed, but while it might have a slick UI, the UX may be oversimplified, or ineffective. I saw a system, recently, that had a nice UI, really slick, and they used widgets (not new, BTW, but I digress). They noted that one of the widgets (which can be changed), is in this area. It turns out that they didn’t want to have any blank space, so something had to go there. Now is that effective? To me, no.

LMSs that went to a whole new level

GeoLearning – had a version that, on the user side, enabled you to have, say, not just your logo behind a desk – it was 3D the UI version, but also the carpet (colors all matched yours – now that is white-label). I had 3D desks (for ILT), a gallery (which offered a lot of options), a bookstore (with e-commerce), and two additional levels. If you want to move from one level to another, go via an elevator. So, very cool. I think that is pretty amazing. I owned it in the early 2000s.

Docebo was the first vendor to have the content marketplace visually seen, a very modern UI/UX, one-click buy and go into your system for content/courses – regardless of whether you bought them. This was several years ago.

Litmos, before being acquired by Callidus Cloud, which was acquired by SAP – UI/UX was highly modern. The system took off out of nowhere. With less than five people working there. Feature-rich. Oh, we were talking again several years ago.

The first vendor to have geolocation in their mobile app? ExpertusOne, in 2015. LMS vendor.

And if you want to get more specific about the whole playlist, YouTube or NetFlix-like appearance, and search for video – it was established by a Learning platform – Video Learning Platform – known as MediaCore. Eventually acquired by Workday, and was the core for Workday Learning. Surprise!

As for the LXPs, overall, pushing, LMSs forcing them to have a better UI/UX, I never saw that. Did they push the LMS market as a whole to go with more content curation aspects? Yes, but not every LXP offered that – to the level that a Degreed or EdCast did. The Playlist angle? LinkedIn Learning offered that once they rolled out, they are not an LXP, let alone a good learning platform. HA Plus, their content playlists are not fully aligned to say what the person seeks. I’ve written about that too.

LXPs failed in two areas that a lot of LMSs offered, metrics. They are overwhelmingly poor (out of the box, i.e. comes with the system). You want better with Degreed? Degreed Intelligence is it – and it rocks. EdCast? Domo. Both are additional costs. There were other problems they had, that a large chunk of LMSs didn’t have – one being multiple levels of approval (a nice capability to offer).

LXP focuses on learners and their continuous development (The LMS doesn’t do this)

This ties into another perspective around learner-centric methods and informal. LXPs offer assigned learning, which a chunk of their clients uses. Why you may ask did LXPs add this feature when they pushed the whole learner-centric and informal angle – to offset why you should have an LMS? (ignoring that any LMS can offer and does offer informal learning, and can go learner-centric – if the client wants to do that)

Their clients. And whom did the LXPs target and still do? L&D. Not training. Only L&D, folks who (as a whole), use assigned learning. You see, they had L&D folks who were using an LMS, and using assigned in that, and while they bought into the whole learner-centric, they invariably started to ask for more and more features they had in their learning platform or LMS. Rather than push back against this, LXP vendors capitulated in various ways and capabilities, which is why they became ubiquitous to a learning platform or LMS.

Any learning platform offers continuous development. I do not like the whole “continuous” angle around a job role. Because that job may not be around in a couple of years, OR that person leaves your company and starts a French Fries Sketch Doodle pad. Continuous should be personal and professional development and not just skills tied to job roles, or the “potential opportunity” they may get. The folks who are big fans of personal and professional development are folks with a training background. Again, not all, but it is one of the modality differences compared to L&D. LXPs, as you can quickly see, are all about employees. Yes, you can use it for B2B/customer training, or an association, but how many people do you know, whose background in L&D and thus OD, oversee customer training or association education programs? I never met one. The feature sets heavily zero in on employees, which is fine, but plenty of audience segments are not employees. When I say employees, it’s a white-collar/office workforce. Not blue-collar.

Bottom Line

For those who provided their perspectives, I truly thank you and appreciate them. I understand the reasons behind it, for you only see what you can see, or are aware of, whereas as an analyst, I see just way more, and have been around in the e-learning space, since the early days. Which totally dates me. No, I am not 221, though.

Enlightenment is a multi-way street, and I always love those who say, “What about this or that?”

To me, we can’t learn, unless, well, we learn.

In the end, though, your learning experience can be matched in an LMS, as it can be with a learning platform or any learning system that is out there.

LMSs, though, are not outdated relics. Do some have a UI/UX that rumbles out of the stone ages – sure, but plenty of SaaS offerings do not match up with the coolest new UI/UX out there, and people still use them. Ditto with Learning Platforms. And Ditto with LXPs – regardless if they are standalone, or a part of an LP or LMS.

They often say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

When it comes to your learning, that beauty is being driven, not by the end-user or system type, but by the person overseeing the entire system and/or department.

So, let’s put the blame, where it really belongs.

Because it isn’t the LMS.

It’s to those, who see the beauty of assigned learning, lack of learner-centricity, lack of tailored course/content experiences, and everything else you see as evidence of what is wrong or bad with the LMS.

And who are they?

The same folks who oversee the department/and learning system.

Or as we often refer to in the industry;

The client.

E-Learning 24/7

The post The LMS – Let’s Set The Record Straight first appeared on By Craig Weiss.

To support an agile workforce in the face of constant change, learning and development (L&D) professionals are applying agile and lean business approaches to employee training. Often described as “adaptive learning,” the goal is to provide the precise information workers need when they need it. Adaptive learning integrates AI-driven features for customized learning paths based on the performance...

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The upcoming ISO/IEC AI Workshop, scheduled for 12 and 14 June, will be an important event for researchers, industry experts and policymakers.

In a conversation, we were discussing how L&D fares. Badly, of course, but we were looking at why. One of the problems is that L&D folks don’t have credibility. Another was that they don’t measure. I didn’t raise it in the conversation, but it’s come up before that they’re also not being strategic. That came up in another conversation. Overall, there are two steps for L&D to really make an impact on.

Now, I joke that L&D isn’t doing well what it’s supposed to be doing, and isn’t doing enough. My first complaint is that we’re not doing a good job. In the second conversation, up-skilling came up as an important trend. My take is that it’s all well and good to want to do it, but if you really want persistent new skill development, you have to do it right! That is, shooting for retention and transfer. Which will be, by the way, the topic of my presentation at DevLearn this year, I’ve just found out. Also the topic of the Missing LXD workshop (coming in Asia Pacific times this July/Aug), in linking that learning science grounding to engagement as well.

I’ve argued that the most important thing L&D can do is start measuring, because it will point out what works (and doesn’t). That’s a barrier that came up in the first conversation; how do we move people forward in their measurements. We were talking about little steps; if they’re doing learner surveys (c.f. Thalheimer), let’s encourage them to move to survey some time after. If they’re doing that, let’s also have them ask supervisors. Etc.

So, this is a necessary step. It’s not enough, of course. You might throw courses at things where they don’t make sense, e.g. where performance support would work better. Measurement should tell you that, in that a course isn’t working, but it won’t necessarily point you directly to performance support. Still, measurement is a step along the way. There’s another step, however.

The second thing I argue we should do is start looking at going beyond courses. Not just performance support, but here I’m talking about informal and social learning, e.g. innovation. There are both principled and practical reasons for this. The principled reason is that innovation is learning; you don’t know the answer when you start. Thus, knowing how learning works provides a good basis for assisting here. The practical reason is it gives a way for L&D to contribute to the most important part of organizational success. Instead of being an appendage that can be cut when times are tough, L&D can be facilitating the survival and thrival strategies that will keep the organization agile.

Of course, we’re running a workshop on this as well. I’m not touting it because it’s on offer, I’m behind it because it’s something I’ve organized specifically because it’s so important! We’ll cover the gamut, from individual learning skills, to team, and organizational success. We’ll also cover strategy. Importantly, we have some of the best people in the world to assist! I’ve managed to convince  Harold Jarche, Emma Weber, Kat Koppett, and Mark Britz (each of which alone would be worth the price of entry!), on top of myself and Matt Richter. Because it’s the Learning Development Accelerator, it will be evidence-based. It’ll also be interactive, and practically focused.

Look, there are lots of things you can do. There are some things you should do. There are two steps for L&D to do, and you have the opportunity to get on top of each. You can do it any way you want, of course, but please, please start making these moves!

The post Two steps for L&D appeared first on Learnlets.

Coming off the seismic shift to virtual learning during the pandemic, education is facing another wave of transformation, this time from technology. Although the rise of generative AI — specifically ChatGPT, a large language model (LLM) and example of generative AI — has many educators worried about plagiarism, it actually holds the potential to revolutionize the way students learn and academic institutions operate. 

 

According to Tony Sheehan, a Gartner VP Analyst focused on education, generative AI tools can make large swaths of information accessible in ways we never imagined. Educators and institutions first need to build trust in the technology and determine how to handle short-term anxieties. Then students can learn how to interact with generative AI tools, and use them to emphasize creativity and improve their time management to learn more efficiently. 

 

Dig Deeper:

 

Download Now: Your Detailed Guide to the Gartner Top Technology Trends 2023 in Higher Education

https://gtnr.it/42dg9Fk

 

Download Now: See the 2023 Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends

https://gtnr.it/3ggaj3W

 

Knowledge mining and graph visualization of ancient Chinese scientific and technological documents bibliographic summaries based on digital humanities
Xiang Zheng, Mingjie Li, Ze Wan, Yan Zhang
Library Hi Tech, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.-

This study aims to extract knowledge of ancient Chinese scientific and technological documents bibliographic summaries (STDBS) and provide the knowledge graph (KG) comprehensively and systematically. By presenting the relationship among content, discipline, and author, this study focuses on providing services for knowledge discovery of ancient Chinese scientific and technological documents.

This study compiles ancient Chinese STDBS and designs a knowledge mining and graph visualization framework. The authors define the summaries' entities, attributes, and relationships for knowledge representation, use deep learning techniques such as BERT-BiLSTM-CRF models and rules for knowledge extraction, unify the representation of entities for knowledge fusion, and use Neo4j and other visualization techniques for KG construction and application. This study presents the generation, distribution, and evolution of ancient Chinese agricultural scientific and technological knowledge in visualization graphs.

The knowledge mining and graph visualization framework is feasible and effective. The BERT-BiLSTM-CRF model has domain adaptability and accuracy. The knowledge generation of ancient Chinese agricultural scientific and technological documents has distinctive time features. The knowledge distribution is uneven and concentrated, mainly concentrated on C1-Planting and cultivation, C2-Silkworm, and C3-Mulberry and water conservancy. The knowledge evolution is apparent, and differentiation and integration coexist.

This study is the first to visually present the knowledge connotation and association of ancient Chinese STDBS. It solves the problems of the lack of in-depth knowledge mining and connotation visualization of ancient Chinese STDBS.

https://www.elearningmarketplace.co.uk/core-learning-acquires-elearning-marketplace/ Core Learning Services Ltd, the UK-based eLearning...24th May 2023

Find out how apprenticeships can support with attraction, development and retention in your organisation.

Workplace education and training
Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp.28-29

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

By facilitating further education and training, employers ensure a longer employee work lifespan and the adaption of skills to transform into specialties or using new technologies and software.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.