5 great speakers from the AITD conference - a summary of ideas

A couple of weeks ago I flew up to Sydney for a few days to attend the Australian Institute of Training and Development's 2010 conference. I'd seen the program 6 months earlier and thought that there were a few sessions that looked pretty interesting. I'll give you a bit of a summary in this post and will provide a link to my Twitter feed for the conference, I think that will help to flesh out how I found some of the sessions! I'm writing a brief post on the use of Twitter at the conference as my next post - a sneak peak (hardly any people used it!)

Now I won't give a run down on every session I attended but instead will walk you through my 5 favourite keynotes/workshops and give you an overview of my impressions and the key lessons/ideas I walked away with.

So here are my top 5, in no particular order!

1. Preconference workshop with Janet Clarey

I was looking forward to Janet Clarey's workshop! I write a blog, use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc but what did I know about Social Media really? I use it a fair bit and speak with business clients about how they can use social media to promote learning, however to be honest I still feel like a newbie with much of this!

In a room with about 30 others spread across 5 tables Janet walked us all through different social tools that are available and how they could be used for learning. To be honest I was a bit surprised that so many of the attendees (generally in-house L&D managers) used so few of the tools. The session was very hands on, with a couple of laptops per table so that we could all get in and use different tools. Tools covered included, wikis, blogging and microblogs, social bookmarking and networking, rss feeds and Google services. 

Participants were shown in real time the usefulness of much of the technologies (it certainly wasn't a lecture with only one-way information transfer!) Indeed Janet quickly found Jay Cross and Gary Woodill via skype to provide some further input into the session and answer questions!

As the day unfolded I found that I was actually a bit further along with all this than I thought, Janet had even seen my blog! :) As I said however, I was really surprised by how little many of the businesses represented used these technologies at all, let alone for learning!

I found the session excellent and probably a good model for workshops within businesses considering the use of such tools, or who are just interested in finding out what they may have to offer.

Key question: Why aren't more business using social media as much as they could to enhance organisational learning?

2. Live Idea Generation with Amantha Imber. 

I've read and blogged around the topic of creativity a bit, so this workshop by Amantha Imber, had stood out on the program as one that looked pretty interesting, I was right! Amantha is a great presenter, energetic and passionate - her business, Inventium is well worth a look! The session was fun, hands on and practical at the same time - perfectly pitched for a conference audience. Amantha ran us through 6 idea generation methods, they were:

1. Newsflashing
2. Fat Chance
3. Shifting
4. Assumption Crushing
5. What would X do?
6. Mag-a-holic

To get a better idea of these have a look via the links Amantha has provided. 

1. A link to a free download of her report "Five ways to boost creativity in your organisation"
2. I'd also recommend her book, The Creativity Formula, I bought it and have read it.
3. The results of the group's "Newsflashing" activity

Summary, an excellent session!

3. E-Learning is what? with Dr Allison Rossett

This was another session I'd being looking forward to having bought and read Allison's book (First Things Fast) a few months ago. Dr Rossett began by posing the question, E-Learning is what? You read the question and the temptation is to answer, 'it is X!' But it is a good question for as Allison said, "we all see ELearning differently" and in fact, "there is hardly any agreement on what ELearning is".

Now stop and think for a second, ask yourself the same question, what is E-Learning and what isn't? When you begin to get into it you soon realise that so many types of learning are covered by the umbrella term of E-Learning that to measure the effectiveness of ELearning generally is very difficult.

Unfortunately, as Janet Clarey tweeted during the session, too often E-Learning is seen sometimes as the 'bastard child of Powerpoint and HTTP", when in reality the breadth of learning methods that fall under the heading of E-Learning is extremely broad.

An interesting set of 'stats' were Top 5 and Bottom 5 uses of E-Learning.

Top 5 E-Learning practices

    1. Tests

    2. Classroom Computers

    3. Online Tutorials

    4. Visuals with audio

    5 Scenario-based learning

5 least-used Elearning Practices

    1. Online Discussions

    2. Human e-coaching

    3. Realistic '2nd life(ish)' learning

    4. Virtual classrooms

    5. Mobile learning

Allison also mentioned an excellent Australian Journal, "Journal of Applied Research in Workplace E-learning", well worth registering and reading! A key message from Allison was that E-Learning can be so many things, as she describes it, E-Learning is like a "quiver of arrows for you to select from according to need"

During the conference generally I was struck by the seemingly low uptake of E-Learning generally in organisations and 'newer' forms of E-Learning in particular. Allison touched on this with her 5 top barriers to E-Learning uptake, they were as follows. (also have a look at an earlier blog post of mine - 'Scared of First - why business is resisting new learning)

5 Barriers to E-Learning uptake

    1. Money

    2. Hard to change people's existing practices

    3. Technology

    4. Hesitation to use social sites

    5. Preference for classroom learning

Overall I found Dr Rossett's keynote to be a challenge to L&D practitioners out there who may have a particular view of what E-Learning is and whether it would suit the business they work for. My hope is that the session left people motivated to look beyond their current perceptions of E-Learning to explore the wide world of E-Learning formats that are available now and continue to evolve.

4. Unleashing Potential through Creative Thinking & Leadership with Tania de Jong

"Creativity and Artful thinking are in short supply because of the education system" begins Tania de Jong. Yep, I must agree, I've recently read Sir Ken Robinson's excellent book The Element and it is something that I see myself in much of the work I do. 

Tania then begin's to explain that her grandparent's invention of the folding umbrella, a concrete example of creativity to be sure, but Tania believes that we are in fact "educating people out of creativity" (a little like my last post on destinationism)

But I think that as far as learning is concerned creativity is taking too much of a back seat to standards, systems, benchmarks and so on. Great, new ideas and innovations do not come from people who are trained to think in one set way. Instead new and better ways of doing things are created by people who are able to bring together two or more different ideas to create an entirely new and unique one!

Tania has broad interests and seemingly clearly superior time-management skills! She runs her own business, heads a charity that promotes music education, is a professional soprano singer and is bringing together a whole range of creativity thinkers for a conference in Melbourne later this year - Creative Innovation 2010! A very busy woman!

The session finishes with Tania getting the whole room to sing (very tunefully it must be said!) and leaving us with a couple of concluding thoughts, "We are all more creative than we believe" and "Follow your heart, remove self-limiting beliefs".

I wasn't sure I'd like the session, but left it having really enjoyed it, excellent!

5. The role of Social Business Design with Anne Bartlett-Bragg

The last of my top 5 sessions from the conference was by Anne Bartlett-Bragg, from the business headshift. Anne began by looking at what a socially designed business looked like, she believes it has the following characteristics:

       It is a place where, "the information is not important in itself" but rather, "it is the relationships to      other people with shared interests" that is important.

       Key Principles: Participation + Usability + Networks

       Key Behaviours: Trust + Openness + Authenticity

    Or, perhaps another way to put it is that is about Connections, Communications, Culture and     Content!

I liked the "Social Technographics Ladder" shown, there's a good explanation here on the Forrester blog, and through looking at the slideshow below.

Social Technographics Explained

You can also use the following tool to identify the profile for a range of countries, ages and genders. Try your own, it's quite interesting.

Perhaps the message I liked the most however were the, 8 qualities of learning in a socially designed workplace:

1. Learners are now producers and creators of learning NOT just consumers
2. Learning can be collaborative
3. Learning can be personalised
4. Learning can be informal
5. Learners can now create, publish, distribute, subscribe, read and re-create content
6. Learning is participatory
7. Learners are empowered
8. Learners are engaged

I wrote a blog post on Read Write vs Read Only a while back so really liked seeing some of the same messages!

6. Being Helpful is the New Black with Annalie Killian

OK, I said 5 favourites! Before I finish I'll add the slideshare presentation of Annalie's slides as I wasn't able to tweet during her presentation, my laptop battery was all worn out! Her's was the final keynote with great slides, until a technical issue left her slide-less! Her slides and preso are worth a look, so here it is! Annalie has been good enough to include her notes so you should get a good idea about her presentation!

Being Helpful is the New Black: Building a collaborative culture and accelerating organisational learning and strategic renewal

Wrap up

I found the conference well worth my time. I connected with a wide range of other L&D people, learnt quite a lot and left with heaps of ideas floating around my head! There were a few nagging thoughts in my head during the conference and continuing still. 

1. How can business be encouraged to see learning more broadly than they do? 
2. Why does learning (as far as business is concerned) need to look like a formal workshop or fairly static elearning formats? 

I suppose at the end of the day we as L&D people must speak to businesses in their language, outcomes, targets and budgets. We can't just expect others to see the potential that we see for new technologies to provide new and exciting platforms for enhanced informal learning.