Donald Taylor yesterday went through five trends for Learning and Development that acted as a nice lead in to the upcoming Learning Technologies Exhibition I blogged about last time.
Don’s 5 themes were the below:
- Globalization & big picture changes
- Integration
- Data
- The role of L&D
- Performance
It was point four which perhaps interested me most. The suggestion was that the LPI Capability Map and survey results are suggesting a skills gap in the areas where L&D focus can be seen as moving towards (and away from course delivery)…
- Curate (find/filter/interpret/share)
- Community management
- Performance consulting
- Research
- Networking and influencing
Now I do not think these are really unique to L&D, but they are interesting to me considering I have come to L&D from an information/education background. Indeed at the most basic level you may well say that resource management and building a community around the recommended materials are what libraries have always been about.
There are parallels for others too, including marketing professionals who will be experiencing similar ideas in needing to manage a social network around the brand rather than standalone marketing campaigns, which might be seen as the traditional equivalent of a L&D learning event. Other aspects would be generic to any industry – everyone should research where they are in comparison to colleagues, competitors, etc. with appropriate networking and influence for their department to achieve its aims.
The decline of corporate libraries is well documented, elsewhere they have survived through a focus on competitive intelligence, knowledge management or sector/client research. The question then is does the current L&D landscape mean investment in a ‘library’ service could be worth an organization’s time and money? The answer – perhaps not a library but certainly a clear manifestation of supporting learning via different mediums, suggesting different ways for people to develop in the way the business needs.
Finally, how best to do this? It might be that a learning management system with embedded social features – treating people (and communities of practice) as a resource alongside courses, reading, videos, podcasts, etc etc. or other similar platform?
Whose Education Is It Anyway? 
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