Here's a very nice extract from a blog post on the Taleo Research blog called A Few Talent Experts You Should Follow. David Wilkins, Taleo's VP of Research, wrote this following attending our Symposium roundtable event in London on the 28th March.
Elearnity Symposium, David Wilson, and David Perring
For those of you in the US who haven’t heard of Elearnity, it’s time
to take notice. These guys know their stuff, and they host an amazing
event. Both David’s know the European market cold and they know
learning – not just the technology, but the design, implementation, and
strategy side as well. And they have been around this stuff for as long
as or longer than me – which is saying something.
That experience brings moderation and insight. They’ve seen it all,
probably tried most of it, and then settled on what’s worked – they know
that new technologies usually don’t displace old ones overnight, and
that the often more pertinent questions are “what new problems does a
change in technology help us solve?” and “what existing problems are
better solved with new technologies or new approaches?” and most
importantly, “what still works just fine the way it is?” Like I said,
moderation and insight. It’s a rare trait among thought leaders to
evangelize new approaches in a thoughtful, balanced way, but that’s what
they do, and it’s why I respect them as much as I do. They “get it” in
ways that most folks don’t. Needless to say, you should follow these
guys and pay attention to what they say. Even more so if any part of
your company does learning in Europe since that is their home turf.
Given the above backdrop, it shouldn’t be surprising that these guys
think about events differently too. Here’s how the Elearnity Symposium
works: round tables at which multiple vendors and multiple talent
practitioners sit. The practitioners kick off a discussion topic that
they are collectively interested in discussing from a list of about 40
suggested subjects (all based on questions and insights from the Elearnity consulting practice), and the vendors then share their
thoughts and perspectives. Perspectives lead to dialog and
conversation, and in this exchange, buyers and practitioners get a sense
for the vendors’ worldviews and directions, and vendors get a broad
sense of the overall issues facing the market. 20 min per table, then
the vendors switch to a new table and new set of questions. Rinse and
repeat three times per session across three sessions.
After participating in just two of these sessions, I had more info
and a better sense of the market than I could have gotten in multiple
days’ worth of client and prospect meetings. And for the talent
management practitioners, they heard more collective expertise about
market trends, exemplars, and best practices than they would get in
multiple days at a conference. Here are just a few of the topics that
we discussed:
- The trend toward “learner-centric” approaches and what they mean from a strategy and design perspective.
- Planned adoption, roadblocks, strategies, and directions related to mobile learning.
- Key design principles and best practices in blending formal, social, and informal learning models.
- Key causes for LMS implementation failures or “failure to meet expectations.”
- Platform discussions regarding the pros and cons of enterprise social platforms vs. social tools inside the LMS.
Good stuff right? What was great about this exchange was that format
fostered honesty and authenticity. It was also pretty obvious which
vendors knew their stuff after just one or two rounds of discussion, and
which ones were just serving up talking points. It was equally obvious
where the practitioners were in their adoption curve for emerging
trends. If you’re based in Europe, this is definitely an event to check
out next year. If not, I’d still follow the Elearnity team – David
Wilson and David Perring in particular. They know their stuff, they
know what matters in the trends that are happening, and they can give
sage advice about how to get “there” from “here.”
Thanks David ... we appreciate the positive comments.
Here's more
information on the roundtables on our website. Please
contact us if you are a UK/European Enterprise-class organisation and would like to be involved in future research discussions and roundtables.
