I tend to skim CILIP Update magazine when on the train. This month, a couple of articles jumped out – both felt like they needed a bit more reflection.
The first (“Information management leaders – we have work to do”) would sound familiar to a lot of support services (such as HR, L&D. etc). The article argues for a strategic future for information management as CILIP’s IM Project progresses. The article mentions major trends, such as Big Data, and it ends with a summary of the role in that “most of our information management enhancing [sic] the digital workplace”. This will sound similar to some of my posts here and what I’ve argued elsewhere. In the article the focus is on being “strategic information advisors” ensuring “easy to access, relevant and valid information”, but this could be swapped out depending on your personal focus to learning and other areas. Personally, the blurring of these areas is become such that we perhaps should be looking at the skills, such as those related to mobile development and data analysis, rather than the expertise background. Unfortunately this would involve a lot of organizational transformation, and challenges for organizations such as CILIP – created around ‘professions’.
“Using metrics to demonstrate the value of your service” was the second article looking at some of the automatic statistics and more qualitative approaches that can be used. This went back to some extent to a previous event I attended.
I recently argued with a colleague that, in L&D, we will fail if we are seen as ‘a breed apart’. People will learn in their own ways. There is perhaps a need for support services to be the ‘go to experts’, after all we’ve seen what ‘learning’ looks like to some people, but so embedded this is just part of common practice. The centralized, decentralized, embedded, etc. arguments will rage on for support services but if we operate in a digital workplace environment then that blurring may help the support rather than concentrating on the service.
Whose Education Is It Anyway? 