MIKE TAYLOR – CRYSTAL BALLING WITH LEARNNOVATORS (PART 1)

ABOUT MIKE TAYLOR:

Mike Taylor advises organizations and consults on learning strategy, technology and implementation for Change4Growth, Ohio. He has also been serving the role of a Facilitator for Association for Talent Development (ATD) for over two years. Mike is known the world over for his role as the Community Manager at Articulate.

Mike has over 20 years of experience successfully developing and deploying a wide variety of learning strategies and technologies. He is known for his practical, street-savvy style of communication that helps him easily connect with his audience. He is popular for curating the best of the learning, design and technology news on his website.

Mike holds an MBA degree from Ohio University and a master’s degree in Learning Design and Technology from San Diego State University.

ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW SERIES:

Crystal Balling with Learnnovators is a thought-provoking interview series that attempts to gaze into the future of e-learning. It comprises stimulating discussions with industry experts and product evangelists on emerging trends in the learning landscape.

Join us on this exciting journey as we engage with thought leaders and learning innovators to see what the future of our industry looks like.

THE INTERVIEW:

1. LEARNNOVATORS: We are great fans of your work, Mike. For many years now, you have been helping the community understand about things related to workplace learning, technology, and social tools with your brilliant insights around these topics. We remain grateful to you for helping us stay updated with your list of curated learning resources (recap) every week. In fact, we look forward to the list every week to know what is new and what has changed. You inspire your audience that includes thousands of followers of your blog (including us) with your practical but easy-to-follow style of narration.

MIKE TAYLOR: I love working in this field. The process of learning is very energizing for me personally. I see learning as one of the important competitive advantages for people and organizations.

I think the most disruptive/innovative ways organizations can improve workplace learning is taking a holistic approach to learning by tapping an ecosystem that enables people to share and learn from many others that is much more scalable than what has been done traditionally. There will always be a role for L&D professionals – it just may be different than before. Jane Hart’s Modern Workplace Learning is a great place to read more about this idea.

I’ve always been guided by sharing the things that have been helpful to me so that others might find them and benefit as well. I hope it has helped others in our field discover new ways of thinking and being successful.2. LEARNNOVATORS: How has your journey been so far? What have been some of the challenges and inspirations?

MIKE TAYLOR: My journey has been a winding one. I started doing software training, moved into doing instructional design and then designing and building elearning. I spent some time as a one person training department in a large corporate enterprise.

Some of the challenges have included “selling” the best solutions and trying to move people beyond traditional training to better, more efficient options. The flip side of that is, when you’re successful and able to make a positive impact you end up helping people work better and helping improve meaningful business results.3. LEARNNOVATORS: What do you think are the disruptive trends that are presently influencing corporate L&D to re-imagine itself?

MIKE TAYLOR: Fresh thinking that takes us beyond the typical classroom and elearning approaches that are prevalent in many organizations. Finding better, faster and more efficient ways for organizations to learn is becoming ever more important. Many of these ideas are not “new” but are just now getting traction.4. LEARNNOVATORS: What are the most pressing learning challenges corporations are facing today? Can you also share some of the innovative ways in which these global organizations are successful in finding solutions to their workplace learning issues?

MIKE TAYLOR: The shelf life of skills is shrinking, which means we need to learn, unlearn and relearn faster than ever before in order to keep pace. Traditional training approaches are often not dynamic enough to get the job done. We have to look at new, better approaches for learning and enable everyone to learn from each other as much as possible.5. LEARNNOVATORS: How do you think your work has been able to influence and guide the community so far?

MIKE TAYLOR: I hope that I’ve been able to help introduce new ideas and concepts that have helped L&D professionals think outside the box and have a positive influence on their organizations.6. LEARNNOVATORS: As we see, workplace learning is changing more dynamically than ever before, and as a result, there is a fundamental shift in how organizations perceive it. Just like us, you too seem to be a fan of Future of Work Strategist, Heather McGowan, and have been sharing her thought-provoking insights: “In the past, we learned (once) in order to work; Now and into the future, we must work to learn (continuously)… Today, it is less about what you know and more about how you can learn and adapt”. As an ardent practitioner of continuous learning, you too advocate that we workplace learning professionals should lead the charge.

What are some of the key things organizations should do to become learning organizations?

MIKE TAYLOR: One of the most important things is enabling people to learn from each other without any need for L&D to be the middleman. Dynamically sharing what they learn with each other and being able to find relevant experts through working out loud and other approaches can be a huge advantage.7. LEARNNOVATORS: How do you engage with your clients to prepare them for lifelong learning?

MIKE TAYLOR: Yes, we should be leading this charge! We should be role models for trying new ideas and approaches to learning. To me there is nothing worse than hearing an L&D person say that they have no time for learning. Seems like malpractice to me.

To become a learning organization, everyone should be enabled and encouraged to make their work and what they are learning from it visible. Many people sharing with many others in a “friction-less” way is a huge asset for an organization. Ultimately, clients or anyone else have to see the value of learning and its application, and the rest will take care of itself.8. LEARNNOVATORS: Do you agree that it is time to re-invent our education system with new approaches such as this Kaplan University Partners – Quest Research Study‘s ’Study while Working‘ proposal that could disrupt the traditional route to earning a degree and starting a career? What would be your advice to educationalists and policy makers to reform school learning?

MIKE TAYLOR: I do think our educational system should be re-examined. Here in the US, it seems education isn’t valued as much as it used to be. We’ve got too many rigid guidelines, too much standardized testing and not enough time for things like the arts. Given our political environment, I’m not optimistic this change is going to come anytime soon. I’m sad to think of it. To me, education is the foundation for everything else in our lives and we should revere educators above athletes and entertainers.9. LEARNNOVATORS: Can you propose some strategies for marketing learning programs to the modern employees who are able to spend only 1% of their time for learning?

MIKE TAYLOR: No matter how much time someone has for learning, establishing a Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system is one of the best ways to make that time valuable and effective. Harold Jarche has written a lot about this and is great resource for getting started.10. LEARNNOVATORS: What are some of the ideas to get today’s employees’ attention that works?

MIKE TAYLOR: I’ve talked a lot about how L&D should steal some of the tools and techniques that marketers use so well to gain attention and impact behavior. One of the most important things is “speaking to the lizard brain” and understanding a bit about how our brains work and what captures our attention. The three most important things are (1) Streamlining your messaging to make it as clear and succinct as possible, (2) Tapping into emotions and (3) Using visuals to support points (1) and (2).11. LEARNNOVATORS: Are there any other stories you could share to inspire L&D to ‘think like marketers’?

MIKE TAYLOR: As I’ve said before, marketers are generally much better than L&D at understanding how human brains work and what they pay attention to. They realize that boring facts and figures rarely work to gain attention and effect change. Marketers are really good at tapping into people’s emotions and the subconscious thinking that drives much of our decision making and behavior.

Another thing marketers do well is experiment and use data to iterate towards the things that work best. One of my favorite ideas from marketing that is super easy to adapt for L&D purposes are email marketing tools like MailChimp, etc. Email marketing platforms can support and enhance the learning programs you already have and give you some insightful data.12. LEARNNOVATORS: We believe that the learning business we are in carries so much significance since the impact of every step we take is profound, affecting the lives of a groups, societies or even generations. Here we are reminded of Seth Godin’s insights: “Great marketers do service. They say, “How do I serve this group of people? How do I educate them? How do I open the door for them?” Though this thought from Seth was originally aimed at inspiring marketing, we feel inspired to get these imbibed into our thought processes.

What would be your advice for learning professionals that can help them resonate with the idea of looking at their work more as a noble service?

MIKE TAYLOR: I think one of our core values should be helping others. Providing value should be at the heart of what we do. That is one of the things that excites me about working in this field – the chance to help others.13. LEARNNOVATORS: Can you share a few ideas that will inspire our readers, not just to practice empathizing, but care to change the way world learns?

MIKE TAYLOR: I’d say the Golden Rule is a great place to start. Think about the things you’re doing and never do anything you wouldn’t want to be part of yourself. That could fix a lot of bad training from being created.14. LEARNNOVATORS: Are there any stories that you can share to inspire our people to be the change agents for a learning transformation?

MIKE TAYLOR: Seth Godin is one of my favorites. This idea of service resonates with me very loudly. Ultimately, what we do should be providing value to the people we serve. Look beyond what has always been done and always question the why and how of your learning programs to ensure empathy and value are the focus. There are a lot of stories about the value of people connecting with each other to learn instead of needing to be taught.15. LEARNNOVATORS: What, according to you, is the potential for conversational (dialog-based) learning in this age of chatbots? What role do you foresee for chatbots as learning guides or agents in bringing learning to where employees are, into their flow of work?

MIKE TAYLOR: Conversations are central to learning. I see things like chatbots contributing to learners’ ability to find knowledge they need. Anything that helps people efficiently get the information they need will always have a central place in our organizations.16. LEARNNOVATORS: What role do you foresee for chatbots to break the silos of our traditional course designs? Would you agree that our designs need to allow users to learn in more ‘natural’ ways, such as through conversations, in place of the traditional Previous & Next buttons?

MIKE TAYLOR: Yes, as natural as possible and as close to where the actual work is being done as possible. Any technologies that can do this will be a step forward over traditional approaches.17. LEARNNOVATORS: What would be your message to learning designers for ‘designing training to be delivered by bots’?

MIKE TAYLOR: I’m a big believer in conversation and connecting people with each other in general. Whether that be via chatbots or any other method, I think learning designers should always look for ways to enable conversations as much as possible. I’m eager to see what new things develop in this space and I expect to see some pretty amazing things happen in a learning context with chatbots tapping into AI and other technologies.18. LEARNNOVATORS: We’ve never been more convinced about the role of learning designers in the learning process. However, we are also amazed at the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to transform learning, as well as learning design. The possibilities are quite exciting! We wish to share a few interesting stories here:

a) Quillionz – the world’s first AI-powered platform (from Harbinger Group) for creating questions, assessments, and quizzes

b) WildFire – the world’s first AI powered 1-click content creation service from Donald Clark

c) Filtered – an AI powered platform that makes intelligent learning recommendations which integrate well into the flow of work

In the context of serious discussions around ‘Singularity’ (moment when AI overtakes human beings), a smaller question relevant to us could be, “Will AI replace our learning designers?” However, like many others out there, we too believe that the role of learning designers is going to be redefined, if not outdated.

What would be your advice to our learning professionals to remain relevant in this scenario?

MIKE TAYLOR: I’m optimistic about the things AI can do to help us identify trends and opportunities from among the massive amounts of data and information we now have access to. I think there will always be a place for a human to interpret the insights generated from AI systems and to come up with the best strategies for what to do. After all, humans are building the AI systems in the first place, right? Learning professionals should look for ways they can leverage AI to help them do their jobs better and more efficiently.19. LEARNNOVATORS: To quote Sugata Mitra, “Knowing is NOT the most important thing. To be able to FIND OUT is more important than knowing.” Learning on the fly is the need of today. We remain excited to see how emerging technologies have started disrupting all aspects of our lives including the way we learn, and are inspired to see the interesting developments happening around us that demonstrate how impactful and significant the changes are. Technology has empowered us with access to information at the ‘moment of need’ at any time of the day and night and wherever we happen to be. We are no longer expected to have acquired (memorized) all the knowledge required to do our jobs or even live this life. However, as we know, a lot of learning today is still built around the concept of ‘memorizing’. As a huge advocate of life-long learning:

What would be your advice to L&D for moving away from the ‘memorized’ way of learning towards continuous learning?

MIKE TAYLOR: There will always be certain things that must be memorized. It is important to know what those are and train those appropriately. For many other things, especially things that are changing rapidly, it is important for people to build personal learning networks to learn from others as efficiently as possible. This means tapping into a variety of types and sources of learning, whether formal or informal.20. LEARNNOVATORS: Are there any stories of transformation that you could share?

MIKE TAYLOR: With the pace of change we are seeing today, the shelf-life of knowledge is continually shrinking. What was true yesterday is often no longer true tomorrow. None of us can afford to stop learning. Our learning agility and the learning agility of our organizations overall will become important competitive advantages.

Several of the things we touch upon in other areas of this interview can help with this; Personal Knowledge Management, curation, social business practices, working out loud, etc. It is an exciting time to be in the L&D field.21. LEARNNOVATORS: It’s always been inspiring for us to read Dieter Rams Principles for Good Design, and especially like the ones: “Good design is as little design as possible” and “Good design is innovative”. As Learning Experience Designers, we also make it a point to constantly ask ourselves, “Is our design good design?” As an expert graphic designer, you have been continuously sharing your valuable insights with the community on how to become better at our designs.

Are there any other thoughts on ‘good design’ you would like to share with our readers that could help them ensure learning a ‘memorable experience’ for their audience?

MIKE TAYLOR: The thing to realize is that we are all designers. Even the emails we send can benefit from being well designed. The key thing to consider is what the experience is like for the people on the receiving end. Is the message clear, easy to understand, with a clear call to action? If you’re not considering design, you are probably missing out on an opportunity to improve your work – no matter what it is.22. LEARNNOVATORS: What are some of the good learning designs that you have been able to see these days that are ‘minimal’?

MIKE TAYLOR: All things being equal, simple designs that are easy to understand are always preferred. One of my favorite “minimal” learning design examples was for a password reset message. Instead of the system generated message, someone in the organization designed a visually appealing email that included helpful information on creating secure passwords and a link for testing the strength of your password.

Very simple and very helpful learning, right in the place that you need it. And it is something that is easily automated with an email marketing tool, which illustrates the benefits of looking beyond L&D to other fields for things we can “steal”.23. LEARNNOVATORS: Can you also share a few good designs that you feel are innovative?

MIKE TAYLOR: The most important thing we should keep in mind when it comes to design is that everyone is a designer. Even the day to day work of creating slide decks and writing emails involve an element of design that makes those things more or less effective.

One great way to become a better designer is to simply emulate what you like and model what others are doing successfully. The simple act of considering what the goal of your design is and making conscious choices can go a long way towards improving your results.

No matter what context you are designing for, empathy for what the experience is like on the receiving end is important. Is your intent clear and easy to understand? Can your audience easily access what they need with a minimal amount of effort and cognitive processing? It is often more important to remove details from any design than it is to add more. It is really true that if you try to tell them everything, you’ll wind up telling them nothing.

To be continued. . . (Part 2 Coming Soon; Stay Tuned)