Author: J.

In preparation for publishing my thoughts for the upcoming year I took some time to review last year’s themes. My macro drivers, first published in 2021 remain changed, as does my unrewarded optimism regarding how fast the impending shift in L&D will take. Trajectories remain more important than current location (more on that in this year’s letter). Especially in an industry with a history of chasing.

If you want to refresh yourself on last year’s report it is available here.

Theme 1: Skills

Of all the themes discussed this shift is most readily obvious. With multiple efforts underway and headlines full of, “the the need for”, “the lack of” and “the power of”, skills, not degrees, are the currency of the worker.  The true value of moving to a skills-based will only be seen when there is a shared standard. While proprietary definitions may be helpful for improved management at the individual company level the lack of transferability means potential talent pools will continue to be overlooked.

Lack of a common ontology also means that third-party learning solutions will struggle to readily identify where they are adding value between organizations and geographies. I am a big fan of standards at this foundational level and L&D has already seen the importance and benefits. SCORM, like bluetooth or router standards, may not be the best bit they allow for developers to invest in other areas of the solution. While various industries will certainly have their specific technical skills, durable skills may change context but are unchanged. This becomes clearer when the next challenge facing these efforts is addressed.  

Getting an ontology correct is not a small matter. I enter the mighty platypus into evidence for your consideration. That said many efforts continue forward without important clarity regarding definitions of what a skill is and on what various skills actually mean.  I was asked to participate in one such national effort and my group was disappointed to see that earlier work has been loosely defined resulting in inconsistencies and a lack of understanding across the “skills” we were meant to evaluate. I enter “grit” into evidence for your consideration.  

As part of building a learning design for a video series my team needed to define “teamwork.” After reviewing +20 teamwork “models” we drafted our working model. Our model identifies 4 supporting capabilities and over 30 contributing durable skills. Would I have preferred to have spent that week building the solution? Certainly. While I do not believe that our definition is the only answer I do know that by having defined our answer we can rapidly remap our targeted skills to any ontology that emerges.  

In last year’s report I stated, “ Just as the microscope open up a new understanding of science, the new skill scope will allow us to see performance in a new way.” Now that we are all looking through the skill scope we need to agree on what we call what we see there.

Theme 2: Video

Video has won the media war. Your podcast is great but science tells us that the eyes are the driver of attention and attention is pretty important to learning. Listening with your eyes closed is simply a way of avoiding those pesky visual distractions, not necessarily a sign that you are really into it. While books are seen as low-tech they still engage the eyes allowing the information or story to be more engaging.

Video offers L&D a familiar, easily distributable and preferred media format. However it also comes with heightened learner expectations.  When you attend a class you are comparing it to other classes you have attended. But when your learning is delivered on video it competes with all the other videos watched by that learner.

Production costs continue to drop so there really is no excuse. And while many focus on improving their video production capabilities L&D continues its habit of content transfer.  Imagine if your daily local news was simply an image of a town cryer standing on a platform shouting out the events of the day. New media offers new opportunities to define a native solution, one that is better than the current. Capturing a lecture or animating a Powerpoint is often worse than live, not better. With the cost excuse removed I hope more will see the opportunity.

The bar is pretty low. While my team was doing research for our recent video project they spoke to a lot of folks and as my production lead expressed, “most of them made the face.” If you don’t know what that means, simply tell someone you spent the morning watching a training video and watch their reaction.

Some rationalize that this is because they are watching for work or the subject is not fun. Yet YouTube remains the highest rated tool for learners and “how to fix your dishwasher” isn’t fun but it gets millions of views. Value to the learner overcomes a lot. So do new design approaches. So while L&D focuses on production, the folks that sell us sugary drinks and divisive ideas put color theory, psychology, symbology and neuroscience to work in their behavior changing solutions.             

Theme 3: M*verse

If you expect me to back off this macro driver you will be disappointed.  Anyone with an understanding of exponential growth will get this. I will, however, keep this uncharacteristically brief. Cloud use continues to grow so the learning tech stack migration is still coming. As for the creator economy, it is going to be big but more on that in this year’s note. 

Finally, last year Ledger, a well funded player in the crypto space launched School of Block, a gamified curriculum for digital currency literacy in the metaworld Sandbox. Season One of SoB had 300,000 players, had 1.5 million impressions, and saw 110,000 graduates with 4.6 million quests completed. More here.

Yes, I agree the players were early adopters, not representative of typical employee populations (for now). Yes, the content, learning how to use money and crypto assets and to avoid scams, was more motivating than typical safety training. But the model which included major sponsorships worked. Now review your adoption curves (I recommend Crossing the Chasm by Moore) and remember it is about trajectories. In the meantime remember it is not about the goggles it is about immersion. More here.

What’s Next

So what is ahead for 2024? Three words: Generative (not just AI), Feral (learning not dogs), and Open (creator space).

As I sat down to write my annual note on what will shape the workforce development industry in the upcoming year I took a minute to reflect on last year’s missive. For those of you who were not on last year’s distribution list I have included the note below. I addition to the summary, I also provided several specific public and private opportunities for clients. I have chosen not to include these but I am happy to discuss them privately. While the focus of my annual note is on the market, and for investors/suppliers, its assumptions have implications for CLO and other other learning leaders.

This year I will publish the updated summary here as part of my annual distribution. Company specifics will remain only for clients.

In Hindsight

Honestly, I am surprised to say that I stand by the all of it. Normally this would worry me. I would assume that it meant that I hadn’t learned anything in the last year. In this case there is another reason for my continued support of the themes laid out twelve months ago. I over estimated the speed of change that the industry would undertake. The lack of enthusiasm from industry leaders to last year’s document was my first hint of this. Despite their chilly reception, the cover of the latest Training Magazine has reaffirmed my sense of direction. Even if my sense of pace is likely still exaggerated.

On Video

One of the investment opportunities I discussed in my note was both publicly traded and video oriented. My recommended sell/short for this company was due to an overriding belief that the model for “factual” video content needed a serious rethink. And I didn’t see anyone, public or private, pursuing new models. Before I distributed my note I actually reached out to one of this company’s large investor and shared my thoughts. They were not convinced. They are down 87% October to October. This is not meant as an “I told you so,” rather it is meant to say that the opportunity in video remains and I believe it will be a big player in 2023.

Final Thought

As I turn my attention to the upcoming year I am doubling down on the trends I highlighted last year. Last year my conclusion was that the opportunity to built the next generation provider in the learning space was there for the taking. I still believe this. But I no longer think that a new player is the big move. For next year I am thinking bigger. More at the end of the month.