Engaged Learning » astd

Be a Designer, Not Just a Trainer

Kevin Jones — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:39:51 +0000

As Dave and I talk about in the latest podcast “Be a Designer, not just a Trainer” (iTunes link) “Performance Improvement” or HPT (Human Performance Technology) should be at the top of the food chain. The following should be understood by us all:

HPT is (should be) in direct coorelation with goals

Learning is a subset of HPT

Training is a subset of Learning

eLearning is a subset of Training

Yet so many times we skip the HPT & Learning parts and go straight for Training or eLearning. Why is that?

The point was driven home just now as I went to my LinkedIn page. It asked for my Industry. I tried to find anything about HPT or Performance Improvement or anything like it. Not there. But there is eLearning, Education Management, Higher Education, Human Resources, Primary/Secondary Education and Professional Training / Coaching. But nothing to do with performance improvement.

Too general? Maybe. But I don’t think so. LinkedIn takes what are the most popular categories. How many of you would consider yourself an HPT professional? Exactly. That is why it is not an option. That is why ISPI has a lower membership (10K) than either ASTD (70K) or the eLearning Guild (35K). This is backwards. We should all be ISPI members and THEN ASTD or eLearning Guild members.

Unfortunately, too often too many people jump from goals to training and skip the inbetween. Why can’t many break free of this rut? My opinion is that this is what those in executive management expect. They expect training. Come to them with some other solution besides training that will work better and their reaction often is, “Why are you doing that? Aren’t you supposed be doing training? This isn’t your department.” I know – I have had it happen to me in the past.

But if we are going to be effective, we have to think of ourselves as Designers of human performance, not Trainers of content.

Improving Conferences – Ideas & the Year Round Conference

Kevin Jones — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:11:13 +0000

This topic has generated a lot of feedback on the blog and in the Twitterverse. Here is a review of some of the talk that has happened.

WH Says:

“…Open up the pool of presenters beyond the same 10-20 names I see at every e-learning conference…. More voices would be a good thing and shows strength (and depth) in our industry.”

Good thought. I know that anyone who wants to present can do so, but they need to turn in an RFP and be chosen. What I don’t know is how many people turn in RFPs. Maybe Brent Schlenker, Heidi Fisk, someone at ASTD or other conferences can tell us the # of RFPs vs. the # chosen.

Another comment from Bill Brandon of the eLearning Guild agrees with me. From what I have seen, Brent Schlenker, Program Manager of DevLearn, has done the best job integrating social media, networking, etc., into the conference. Using Twitter he set up a @dl08 account, a hashtag and a fabulous Twitter board in the lobby. He also created the Pageflakes page, reaching beyond Twitter to videos, picts and all things DL08. He also added in QR codes, but I don’t think they were used very well. At least I didn’t use them – maybe others did. And wireless was great. Bill goes into more details here. Thanks for the info, Bill!

When I put out the tweet on this subject, Brent and I had a short exchange:

bschlenker: @jzurovchak @kevindjones @moehlert – I’m your DevLearn09 Program Manager – Bring it on! Wireless? Check!!! Next…?

KevinDJones: @bschlenker Access to the presenters before hand – a forum for each, maybe? But this steps up the lvl of responsibility of the presenters…

bschlenker: @KevinDJones Sounds good. As a presenter I would love to engage the audience in advance. But, from experience, people don’t show up…

Ya, true. I have tried this before with a conference I co-lead and there was little (but still some) participation. Yet, still, as a presenter myself, I would love this. For example, I throw out my topics and main outline. If those who might want to attend gave suggestions or shared what they are going through I can tailor it to specific audience needs.

This was done in real-time at DevLearn08. My topic was 15 Objections and how to overcome them. After I went through the 15 I asked them for theirs. THIS is where the best learning takes place. They shared ones they were grappling with at the moment and Dave Wilkins and I were able to give ideas of how to answer them. If we could do this ahead of time we could be that much more valuable to the attendees.

YET, at the same time, that means that the idea of a conference being a one time event needs to expand for the audience to get involved before and after. Overall, I think we are slowly moving toward that goal. But I think we can go a lot further. Instead of the one time event, the conference becomes the pinnacle event of a year’s worth of learning and sharing and interaction that is facilitated by conference organizers. Get more people involved and I bet attendance would increase.

Todd Bynum also gave us this article. Although not completely scientific, it certainly drives home a point I think we all intuitively know. Now, we just need to take advantage it.

What do you think about this philosophy – the ongoing conference with the actual conference being the pinnacle event? Is it realistic? I really think it is, but I would need to devote more brain cycles to figuring out how to make it work.

More thoughts about improving conferences later….

AmeriCorps Conference – How Conferences Should Be Done

Kevin Jones — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:45:13 +0000

Last year I did a 1/2 day session at the NW Network Conference and had a fabulous time and learned some great things from eachother. This conference caters to AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps Vista – volunteer organizations with a great purpose and reach. This March they have invited me back to do the opening keynote and four sessions and I couldn’t be more excited not only because I get to come back and talk with some really great people, but also because of the way they are organizing it.

They were self-admittedly a little late in staring the planning, but their planning is all over a wiki which speeds things up. They are creating a NING page for discussions and to post pre & post-conference materials. The conference itself is very hands on – everyone is invited to bring their laptops and there is wireless access for all attendees.

I wish more conferences engaged attendees before and after and during like they are.

(semi-aside) A few months ago Christine Martell, the president of the local chapter of ASTD, and I talked about doing a follow up to the one day conference we put on late last year on Social Learning. My thoughts would be to do more of an BarCamp or unconference for this next one. Sounds like fun. Now, if I could just find the time to squeeze in the planning…