November 3, 2005
Learning 2005: Early reflections
I am back in beautiful Indiana, where the leaves change color and pile up in your yard as fast as emails have piled up in my inbox while I was at Learning 2005. Despite the crush of things bearing down, I believe active reflection is a critical part of learning and I am making time for this need or much of the value in the event will be lost. After this event, I think it will take more than one reflection to fully digest the learning.
I have started a reflection process on the conference to think about what went well and what did not go well. Overall, I think the experience of the conference itself, rather than any individual event was energizing and enlightening. While I have long been immersed in RSS-based technologies through my academic work, few people in corporate learning functions seem to understand the phenomenon. By the time I delivered my repeat session yesterday, wiki was rolling off the tongues of folks who had, just two days before, laughed at the term. Many were actively modifying the Learningwiki and wondering how to get their organizations onboard. This is one small example of why I believe the format of the conference itself was a learning point and the conference was about much more than RSS feeds.
LearningLand contained a climbing wall and pottery station. How could these things possibly relate to the serious business of learning? I think most people "got it." The conference was about freeing your mind to think creatively and innovate, not fill your head with the knowledge of experts who already figured everything out. Some folks could not grasp this concept. They grumbled about the on-the-fly nature of the conference design. Sessions were added, repeated, or changed as the conference progressed based on real-time feedback from participants.
Those who cannot deal with such rapid change struggled. Those who saw the conference as a metaphor for what is happening in business today, excelled and left L5 energized and excited. Being able to step away from the lockstep routine of work and see, touch feel, and even break the conference online tools reduced fear and contributed to learning in a very different way. This is what has to happen across all of what we currently think of as instructional design, knowledge management, and business process. We have to find ways to innovate and motivate our organizations to understand learning as a process.
I used the InfoNetworks tool (http://www.learning2005.net) to make more meaningful connections in 3 days than I have in attending some conferences in 5 years. People were seeking me out and I was seeking others out based on interests and knowledge needs before the conference even began. Now, if we could just connect this sphere of influence tool to the wiki to automagically sort out the information based on what I want and what those with similar interests are reading…
A few items did not work so well for me at the conference (which is good). I thought the general sessions were too long. Two sessions per day at an 1 ˝ to 2 hours is too much. These should be about an hour and more time freed up for people to play with all of the tools. So, one of my suggestions is to have dedicated playtime when people are encouraged to spend time in LearningLand either in open discussion or on one of the tons of computers.
Another big complaint is one I have had for the last three years and it is that there MUST be ubiquitous free wireless throughout the conference center. I am sure there is some conflict with the conference hotel (Disney’s Coronado) because they charge a fee and would make no money if someone were to set up free wireless access. In order for the sessions and citizen participation to move to the next level, however, such connectivity is essential. Imagine the wiki and simultaneous blogs all being updated by multiple participants in real-time in every session!
More a question than a complaint is one that I struggle with after every single conference I attend: How do I take the energy and excitement I have from what I have learned and convey it to others? This is a tricky proposition because, if you come back and tout lots of wonderful things to people who did not attend, they look at you with contempt (I had to stay here and deal with the real world while you went to play). But, if you come back and say and do nothing with what you have learned, then nothing is really gained from the experience. I have some suggestions for this problem but they are incomplete. I will leave those suggestions to another post for now.
Technorati Tag: Learning2005
Posted by Rovy at November 3, 2005 2:56 AM