I was reading the blog “Clive on Learning” http://clive-shepherd.blogspot.com/, in which my friend raised some interesting questions about why training fails to align itself with business needs.

Maybe the reason why learning does not satisfy business needs is, as Clive suggests, that The Business cannot, or will not say, or Learning and Development neglects to ask. If so then the solutions would indeed be the antidote to each of these – demand that they tell you; help them to understand and articulate their needs; make certain you ask.

I’m strongly inclined towards the second premise in Clive’s blog, which is that L&D may very well know what the business needs, but gives it something else! Do we then supply the wrong thing because we don’t really want to align our interventions to business objectives? It seems unlikely until you begin to dwell on the question. But the reasons why this might be the case might be:

1. We lack belief in the business needs, and think we know better!
2. We have our own pet panacea (e.g. e-learning!)
3. We lack the know-how or skills to develop the proper solution
4. We give in too readily to the demands of powerful sponsors with agendas that are different from the “Party Line”.

The call to ”be assertive”, will not do the trick on its own.

A survey carried out recently by Capgemini and the Economist Intelligence Unit was reported as asking, “Do companies have the skills and experience necessary to deliver successful transformation?”. It reached some very interesting conclusions. The companies surveyed had carried out an average of seven transformation projects in the past three years. They reported that globalisation will force up the level of transformational activity in the next three years, and that corporate survival depends upon “Business Agility”. This month three of my corporate L&D clients found their jobs became redundant while they were looking the other way. So it came as no surprise to read that European executives who initiated transformation or major change programmes were unanimous in the opinion that they have not delivered the expected or desired outcomes for the business. In the survey mentioned, 70% of European companies reported that the programmes they initiated were unsuccessful.

So it seems apparent that “Skill” as well as “Will” plays a key part in all this.

The government has issued a press release to encourage companies to do more business across Europe. The Business Minister Ian Lucas speaks of new opportunities for firms when the EU Services Directive comes into force at the end of the year. The Directive is about reducing barriers and red-tape that make it more difficult for service providers to trade competitively outside their home country. The Minister suggest that sectors such as construction, business consultancy, leisure and hospitality, accountancy and legal services could potentially benefit. He is quoted as saying, “Services account for about 70 per cent of GDP but only 20 per cent of cross-border trade in the EU. But the market for services in Europe is opening up. It’s important that UK firms, including SMEs, are ready to grasp the opportunities this presents for new jobs and growth.” The Directive requires EU Member States to establish ‘web portals’ so that service providers have a single point of contact to find out what legal requirements they must fulfil to operate in various countries. This one-stop-shop must then allow service providers to apply electronically for any licence or permit they need.

It seems obvious that this elevates the need for more efficient and timely communications, and that meeting and presenting through the web across distances will become even more routine in the future. Those who have chosen the right systems, who have the necessary skills and strategy and operate the best policies will have a significant competitive edge through online communication. 

The UK’s portal will be accessible to UK and European enterprises through the Business Link website: www.businesslink.gov.uk You can read the full press release at http://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/lfi/DNWA-7WSEGB

Beware the Luddite within. I think I may be a wikiphuddite! It’s a cross between a wikiphile (one who loves Wikis) and a Luddite, about which I’ll say a little more. But first thank goodness for Wikipedia. On more than one occasion it has led to the correcting of misinformation I was given at Grammar School. A history master 48 years ago taught me that the rebel who gave his name to the smashing of machines was Lobby Ludd (hence “Luddites”). Wikipedia says Lobby was a fictional character whose name was concocted from the London address of the long-defunct Westminster Gazette. The paper was situated at Lobby, Ludgate and the address was shortened for telegraphy to “lobbylud”. Wikipedia seems to me to carry more authority now.

Modern-day Luddites actually borrow the name from one Ned Ludd, who was believed to have destroyed two large stocking frames in the village of Anstey, in the East Midlands 1779. In England at the time you could be executed for breaking machines, and many ended their lives on the gallows at York. It is easy to understand why some did it under the anonymity of a cloak and a false name.

But why did the workers attack the machines? Wage cuts and the threat of losing their livelihood. What did they do? They broke into factories at night to smash hundreds of new power machines that they believed had deskilled them, and were enabling employers to use unskilled workers. All of this happened in the 18th and early 19th century. Then it was weavers who had served apprenticeships and manufactured stockings on handlooms. Now in the 21st Century it is knowledge workers, who served their apprenticeships on Pedagogy, Andragoy and Instructional Process only to find less skilled workers supplanting them on automated systems. So “plus ca change; plus c’est la meme chose.”

The wikiphile in me regains ascendance, and whispers with alarm in my ear, “But what if we lost all social media overnight?”

Well E.M. Forster raised that vision when he wrote “The Machine Stops”. If you’ve never read it then stop whatever you are doing (yes, even stop reading this blog and download it, you can always come back here later – there’s a free e-book – Google will point you in the right direction). Forster describes a nightmare world of the future in which humans have lost the ability to live independent lives. Each individual occupies a lonely ‘cell’ deep beneath the ground. Emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical needs are served by “The Machine”. Most people are all too willing to surrender their autonomy. They deify The Machine and grant it awesome power, forgetting that Man created the Machine. The dreadful sanction for non-subservience is “Homelessness”. The title of Forster’s short novella hints at what happens at the end, when “The Machine Stops”.

I suppose in the case of “The Machine” no-one saw it coming. I don’t suppose many foresaw the arrival of Amazon or e-Bay either. Few could have predicted Facebook and even fewer might have guessed at how quickly Twitter would become ubiquitous in our daily communications. Now the Wikiphile is having his day, so let’s have a word from the Luddite.

Amazon and e-Bay are not going to go away, but where I live in Chesterfield the entire town has become overshadowed by two enormous retail developments. B&Q has an enormous distribution centre at Barlborough Links just outside the town, and a gigantic new store in the town itself. Tesco has built a massive concrete and steel superstore that occupies around 1.2 million square metres and dominates the skyline even to the extent that part of the A61 trunk road has acquired the name “The Tesco Roundabout”. So please don’t tell me we do everything online now.

But let me come to my final point. My very good friend Barry and technophile told me last week that he was attending a “Tweet-up”. Now I’d heard of a booze-up and I was familiar with a nosh-up and a knees-up, but a tweet-up was an entirely new concept for me. And then, Oh Joy, I found out that it’s a good old-fashioned “meet-up” for Twitter enthusiasts! And you know, I couldn’t give a damn whether or not they buy it online or at Gregg’s; I thank God or The Machine or whatever power exists for the coming together of people and tea and cake. So don’t try to tell me that virtual social intercourse can satisfy all needs. The urge to meet and eat and shop and party and sing and dance and learn and even (book circles) to read together is far too strong a human urge.

I’m not “railing against the machine”, and I am strong advocate of the effective but moderated use of technology. I do still occasionally awake in a panic, wondering if we’re allowing technology to be the master rather than the servant of our humanity. Incidentally Forster wrote his story in 1909, and in case you think that’s a misprint I’ll spell it out – nineteen hundred and nine!

Thanks to Eliane Alhadeff from the Future-making Serious Games blog for bringing Digitell’s VirtualU to my attention. According to Elaine, “VirtualU provides an immersive, interactive, 3-dimensional experience that replicates its real-life counterpart in a realistic online environment. If you are currently running webinars, tele-seminars, or live educational sessions, VirtualU can easily transition your event into Digitell’s virtual platform, allowing you to convey your message in a highly-effective format while increasing your ability to interact with attendees through text chat, voice over IP or integrated social media.”

Elaine suggests this just might represent the future of conferencing. Obviously only time will tell. The issue for me is whether the 3D environment provides a more compelling experience than you can obtain from simple 2D web conferencing. The name ‘Digitell’ isn’t a promising start, suggesting a rather one-way experience, although the product certainly supports a highly interactive format.

Much more info and more pics in Digitell’s Serious Games: The Future Of Conferencing.

From discussions I’ve had with people in learning and development over the past year, it seems to me to have been quite a rarity for l&d to have taken the initiative when it comes to the use of web conferencing in their organisations. I know that virtual classrooms are well established in the US and that some 10% of formal training is carried out this way, but very few l&d people that I’ve encountered in Europe were aware of the possibilities until either (1) they were invited to a webinar and were brave enough to participate, or (2) their organisations started to use web conferencing to run virtual meetings.

The decision to use web conferencing is most likely to have been made by the IT department, quite possibly as part of a broader strategy for online collaboration. The drivers will almost certainly have been the potential for efficencies in terms of time and cost. It’s quite possible that, when they made the purchasing decision, the IT people had no idea that the software would have implications for l&d or, if they did, they neglected to tell anyone. It is unlikely that they considered the additional functionality that would be needed to support l&d activities, not least integration with learning management systems and tools such as breakout rooms and object-oriented whiteboards.

It’s becoming increasingly important for senior l&d people to form a close relationship with IT, because more and more of the decisions about the infrastucture that supports learning also have to take into account the application for more general communications within the organisation. Obvious examples are wikis, blogs, podcasting and social networks, none of which are likely to be regarded primarily as l&d technologies, but all definitely of interest when the l&d strategy is viewed holistically.