Some two years ago I was blogging about the analogy that buying e-learning by the hour is nearly as absurd as trying to buy a fitted kitchen by the cubic metre. Would you expect to pay the same for a cubic metre of kitchen whether that cubic metre was the space next to the door or occupied with an aga?
The cost of a kitchen is driven by 1) what purpose it needs to fulfil and 2) what it contains. A kitchen that is designed and kitted out from scratch to satisfy Jamie Oliver (and his allegedly rented social circle) is always going to cost more than an existing bachelor kitchen that’s given a quick lick of paint and some new lino.
Even now, there seems a widely held tacit assumption that an hour of e-learning content is homogenous and therefore can always be measured at the same value to its users and therefore the same cost. Why is this?
If you fancy seeing me exercise my vocal cords, I will be speaking at the MemNet conference. MemNet is an organisation that aims to help membership organisations be more effective. The session is called “Making Your Membership Events Pay” – it’s an interactive session which will help you determine how you can improve events, which in turn will improve income and perceived benefit to your members.
Someone was rude enough to hack the Coleface blog, so it has been re-born (Gandalf style) as a whiter kind of thing.
Talking of birth, I have also been enjoying the fun of becoming a father again. Martha was born the last Wednesday in May. She’s doing well and the sleep deprivation may end any day soon…
There’s a popular myth in the learning industry that 80% of the learning that happens in organisations is informal whilst 20% is derived from formal learning interventions e.g. face to face courses and e-learning. Think about it. How could you actually measure how much informal learning is actually happening with any degree of scientific robustness? Once again the assumption that the Pareto Principle applies has been repeated enough times for it to become an accepted truth.
But putting aside my hobby horses, I have read quite a lot about informal learning over the past few weeks. After all, if 80% of the learning does actually happen despite what an L&D does, what savvy L&D practitioner would not be wanting to claim the credit for informal learning?
It feels a long time ago since the Clementi review, but now the legal regulators have given tangible recognition that the best people to lead law practices might not be pedantic professional arguers. The pool of talent for leaders has been broadened so that there is less emphasis on partners having to come from within the profession. This sounds like good news for L&D practitioners within the legal sector.
It’s funny how trends at the macroeconomic level sometimes fail to translate into microeconomic reality. Bearing in mind there’s a recession happening, you’d expect that companies would in general be far keener for business and therefore customer service would improve. Reflecting on the past couple of months I have had a substandard customer experience from several companies (if you don’t like being named and shamed look away now Audi, BT, Fox & Sons, Lloyds TSB and Sky). So what’s actually going on?
Today it is official…I can tell everyone that I am a Redtray employee now. Redtray has acquired Academy Internet and here’s the press release. Big picture, it’s part of the inevitable consolidation in the e-learning industry which looks set to continue throughout 2009.
The AI team will also benefit from having a bigger balance sheet behind it when it comes to pitching for larger contracts, and being part of a company that has the capability to deliver a wide range of blended learning solutions. Personally, I’m looking forward to the opportunities that being part of a bigger team presents.
Elliott Masie drew my attention to this splendid website that analyses websites and decides what Myers Briggs Type Inverntory (MBTI) type they are www.typealyzer.com. Aside from the scepticism about how it actually works, I was tickled that my blog come up the same as my personal MBTI type. Based on the narrative I feel extra “charming and trend savvy” – although often on this blog I wonder just how grumpy I sound 
Having been at Learning Technologies, I got the sense that the e-learning industry is maturing to the point where there’s little radically new. However, what we will see in 2009 is even more pressure being exerted on L&D departments and suppliers alike to get more from less. This will inevitably lead to more effort on measuring results as a means of prioritising scarce resources. So my tip for a trend to watch in 2009 is bad measurement…and lots of it.
Just a shameless plug to say that I will be speaking at the Institute of Assocation Managers conference on 12 Feb 2009. IofAM is the professional association for professional associations…at last, an answer to one of those many infinite regress questions like “who audits the auditors?”.
I will have the chance to expand on the points made in 9 ways to design better conferences and add in a certain extra je ne sais quoi. So if you’re interested to find out more, do come along.