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Aaron

With Gratitude…

December 22, 2015 By Aaron

With Gratitude

Megan and I find ourselves grateful, as the year comes to a close. 2015 gave MakingBetter an amazing journey that was full of surprises. Most were wonderful and some were very scary. Through it all, we found ways to make our clients happy and successful doing work we believed in. When we had struggles and found roadblocks, we worked together to get over whatever the hump was and we got to a better place.

With Gratitude

We created things with great people. Our projects ranged from designing and developing custom reporting for software products, training providers and large enterprises. We launched an online journal, the xAPI Quarterly, kickstarting the publishing arm of our business, Connections Forum, and we ran our first events, xAPI Camps that each were co-created with our participants. In January 2015, we planned for one and as the year closed we had four with five more scheduled in 2016. Our next one at the Autodesk Galleria in downtown San Francisco, February 11. We celebrated another amazing year with the amazing community, Up to All of Us, which will convene again in Sonoma County, February 12-15. We started a non-profit. More on that in a minute.

Grateful to Make MakingBetter Happen

MakingBetter at the Grand Tetons

Megan came on full-time with MakingBetter in June, this year. We took our first serious vacation ever in July. We spent a lot of time with our families and friends. We lived and worked, together, on our own terms for the first time in our lives. We dealt with emergencies and surprise medical concerns. We innovated when we needed to and we stuck to tried and true processes when we needed to, too. We lived well in 2015. I say all this because it’s important to celebrate success and to make sure that credit goes where credit is due. I write tonight grateful for a true partner like Megan, grateful for each and every client we had this year, grateful for each and every person who’s influenced how we do what we do, grateful for our sponsors and our partners and especially…

Grateful for the xAPI Community

It’s the xAPI community I want to talk specifically to now. There are a myriad of reasons why 2015 was good for Megan and I, but the one reason that stands out is the incredible gains in xAPI’s adoption that happened this year. We know there’s been incredible growth in xAPI adoption. Our business boomed and so did that of many software vendors who create solutions that are tailored to meet some of the many things people use xAPI for. We know projects are already being planned for the beginning of 2016 at a scale that equals the whole of xAPI adoption in 2015. These are measureable outcomes of an open source community that has been lovingly and painstakingly attended by the US Department of Defense and its particular initiative, Advanced Distributed Learning. xAPI is in every way a stunning success. It is proving that open government practices, a pro-entrepreneurial approach and an authentic embrace of open source can stimulate innovation, enable implemented approaches to complex and serious challenges, and catalyze economic opportunities. It is far from the applied research and development activity it was four years ago. It is a mature spec that is growing its own industry.

Grateful for xAPI’s Growth

xAPI Camp - DevLearn

xAPI is so successful that it’s actually becoming a challenge for ADL to support it to the scale it now demands. The Design Cohort program that began in 2013 became so well attended and populated that it couldn’t be supported by ADL anymore — they just don’t have the resources to do it on their own. The maintenance of the spec is labor intensive enough for the resources ADL has, that certification isn’t something they can handle on their own without stopping something else important. When SCORM was being created, it was an epoch ago for information and instructional technology, and ADL had over 40 engineers they could apply to SCORM alone. ADL now has dozens of high priority projects and there are maybe six full-time engineers they can resource for xAPI. Fortunately, those of us who brought to ADL the concepts that enabled xAPI’s creation knew that the day would come when specs and standards would need to move beyond ADL to truly mature. This is why open source was so crucial a path for xAPI. It’s because xAPI is licensed Apache 2.0 that anyone can take xAPI and mature it, and that’s just what we’re about to do, given ADL’s blessing and commitment to participate in the effort.

Grateful to Serve Our Community

The non-profit we started at the close of 2015 is the Data Interoperability Standards Consortium, or DISC (because, acronyms). There are many challenges to working with data: interoperability, security, privacy, professional competencies, validation, provenance, ethics, legalities, languages, formats, etc. We intend for DISC to offer the table where all communities of practice, individuals, organizations, governments and industries can work together to meet the complexities of working with data. It’s about more than xAPI, but make no mistake, xAPI is our priority in 2016. The transition from an ADL-organized xAPI Community to a DISC-organized xAPI Community will begin in the first quarter of 2016. By the middle of the year, we’ll have established working groups and special interest groups to explore ways in which xAPI may be extended as well as certification requirements. By the beginning of 2017, we’ll have a certification program in place and an array of tools that will make working with xAPI’s vocabulary much much easier.

That seems like a lot to get done in one year, and you’re right. It is a lot. But it will be done because it has to be done. xAPI is growing so much that if we don’t have certification in place by the end of 2016, we risk xAPI’s long term future. We predict a massive catalyst for international adoption to emerge by the end of 2016 in the way of procurement requirements for governments around xAPI, because having data that everyone can understand and can make use of is in the interest of public good institutions. When governments are a year away from requiring xAPI support and certified products are all that will be purchased, it makes right now the very moment where xAPI goes big. It is exciting, frightening and uncertain – and it’s fun, and this is what it’s like for us to be so fully invested when the stakes are this high. The fact that the stakes for xAPI are this high should be the reassurance everyone needs that xAPI really is a big deal and it’s worth our sweat to invest in its growth right now.

Grateful for a Future We Can Forge Together

Seattle Gathering

Because xAPI is open source, and because xAPI will have an organization that is focused expressly on its maturity, it’s going to get the chance to grow in a way that no learning technology has ever had the chance to do. Megan and I are proud to have an incredible team on DISC’s Board of Directors from around the world who represent years of extraordinary work in leading professional organizations, the science of learning analytics, the development of industry organizations, professional practice and xAPI itself. Very soon, we’ll announce our founding Board of Directors and post our by-laws, our 2016 goals and objectives and we’ll open membership. xAPI will forever be Apache 2.0 and we intend to ensure that it remain open source and cared for by an open community as long as it remains relevant. The organization we’re creating will finally structure how decisions about it are made, balancing the needs of those most invested in xAPI requirements with the needs of those most impacted by xAPI applications. Without the burdens and caveats that come with moving this activity into large spec and standards groups, as a community and an industry with many verticals, we can design our own future with xAPI.

Grateful for Your Help In What Comes Next

There’s been only a few sketchy roadmaps for what Megan and I have been doing together as MakingBetter. There are even fewer notes on what we’re about to do with DISC in forming an industry organization to support a major open source project with the cooperation of its stewards in the US DoD. But, this isn’t the first time Megan and I have had to work with a community to create something that didn’t previously exist. We’ve done it with Up to All of Us. We did it with growing xAPI into a fully realized community of designers, developers, content and data wranglers. We did it with figuring out how to fit open source for US government. And now we’re going to figure out, with the full interest by and for the community, how we grow the industry and professional practice around xAPI. It will require paying members and continued open community participation. It will require a level of dedication, enthusiasm and grit that hasn’t been demanded yet. Given all that, I’ve never been more confident in our abilities, all of us together, to figure this out. We’ve been able to plan and go off-plan and get this far. It stands to reason we’re going to go a lot farther together.

Megan and I are staking our business on xAPI. We’re staking our families on xAPI. We’re committing our lives over the next couple of years to the community and industry around xAPI and we are grateful to do so.

We wish you all the best for this holiday season and for the new year to come. We’ve loved hanging with you. We’ve loved working with you. We’ve learned so much in doing so and we can’t wait for the next level shit about to happen!

More soon!

Filed Under: DISC, Experience API, Standards, Uncategorized

xAPI Camp – DevLearn 2015 is ONE DAY AWAY

September 28, 2015 By Aaron

Connections Forum

We aren’t freaking out — we are FREAKING EXCITED!!! The first xAPI Camp at DevLearn, the first of four events we’re putting on hosted by The eLearning Guild, is nigh upon us. The Guild helped us launch xAPI at mLearnCon back in 2012 and they have been a steadfast supporter of xAPI. Last year was the first year there was an official xAPI Track at DevLearn and, together, we are upping that ante again (…in Vegas).

The eLearning Guild is a terrific host and partner in making xAPI Camp available to attendees as a pre-conference event. We have had so much incredible support from the community, I’d like to take a moment to let you know who’s really helping make xAPI Camp possible.

Partnering Organizations

The eLearning GuildRiptide ElementsMakingBetterAdvanced Distributed LearningLACE

With the Guild, we at MakingBetter have three other partners we’re super happy to work with.

  • Riptide Software has been a big supporter of every xAPI Camp with really compelling cases studies and incredible enthusiasm over the mission of getting people into the conversations they need to have around xAPI. They don’t have a booth at DevLearn, but Nick Washburn, the Director of Riptide’s Learning Division, will be with us on Tuesday and you should definitely give him a high-five.
  • Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) continues to be a huge supporter of the community as the current stewards of the spec itself. We are so happy that Andy Johnson and Craig Wiggins will be with us on Tuesday and throughout the week at DevLearn. We may even be doing karaoke Tuesday night, after xAPI Camp, because that is how we roll.
  • Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE) is a European Union (as in EU-funded) project involving nine partners across Europe. They are passionate about the opportunities afforded by current and future views of learning analytics and educational data mining. We could not be more ecstatic about their partnership. Fabrizio Cardinali will be there Tuesday and all week.

Our Sponsors

BrightwaveCognitive AdvisorsHT2OnPoint DigitalRISCRustici SoftwareSkillawareTorrance LearningTrivantisTES

Organizing events like xAPI Camp take an incredible amount of work, especially in the context of a major industry event like DevLearn. We are so thankful our sponsors make it possible to produce an event that is high quality and super valuable for its participants. Everyone involved agrees to put the bigger goals for xAPI above pitching products and services, which is a big reason why they’re growing. Not just anyone gets to sponsor — we accept sponsorship from vendors and organizations that are really the best-of-breed when it comes to xAPI. And for DevLearn, we have a great list:

  • Brightwave is out of the UK. In August, CTO Jonathan Archibald and I had a great chat about xAPI. While they don’t have a booth, their Project Account Manager, Colin Welch, will be out and about at DevLearn all week.
  • Cognitive Advisors is among the first wave of adopters of xAPI. My wise friend Marty Rosenheck will be joining us on Tuesday. He and Colleen Enghauser will be at their booth in the Expo Hall all week, #238.
  • HT2 is out of the UK. Always pushing us to be more creative and innovative, CEO Dr. Ben Betts and James Mullaney will be around on Tuesday and all week. They have a booth at DevLearn’s Expo Hall, Booth 414.
  • OnPoint Digital has people around the world, in beautiful Savannah, Georgia and Middle Earth… I mean, New Zealand. They have a long history pioneering work in mobile learning and are among the first to adopt xAPI. Mike Palmer and Robert Gadd are likely to be around Tuesday and all throughout the week. OnPoint has a booth at the Expo Hall, Booth 113.
  • RISC Inc., really gets high stake compliance and advance xAPI and, notably, CMI5. Art Werkenthin will definitely be with us on Tuesday, and you can find him, Duncan Welder and Jon Campbell all week at Booth 412.
  • Rustici Software almost needs no introduction as they prototyped and developed innovative work that eventually became xAPI. Continuing to support the community, you’ll find TJ Seabrooks with us on Tuesday.
  • Skillaware leverages a few interesting specs and standards, like BPML, DITA and xAPI, in compelling ways. Based out of Italy, you’ll find Fabrizio Cardinali of LACE with us on Tuesday and at the Skillaware booth, #214.
  • TorranceLearning won the Hyperdrive at last year’s DevLearn event with an impressive case study, merging xAPI with RFID at a Hands-on Museum. You’ll find Megan Torrance at her own workshop on Tuesday, sneaking in to speak with us. She’ll also be at her booth all wee, #416.
  • Trivantis, providers of Lectora, are the first Authoring Tool vendor to support xAPI Camps and we are very happy to have them join us. CTO John Blackmon will be with us on Tuesday and at their booth all week in the Expo Hall, #239.
  • Training Evidence Systems (TES) is out of Australia and has interesting work around mobile and performance coaching with xAPI. They can’t make it to DevLearn this year, but you should definitely reach out to Nick Stephenson on Twitter.

What’s Coming at xAPI Camp?

You can check out the agenda and the speakers here. We have a few surprises we’re going to share tomorrow, and I’m pretty sure some of the participants have some surprises to announce, too. Stay tuned — follow along with the hashtag #xAPIcamp.

Filed Under: Uncategorized, xAPI Camp

The 3rd Gear

August 5, 2015 By Aaron

Cruising down a highway through Montana in a '15 Ford MustangAs xAPI shifts into 3rd gear, with an early majority comes a need for a consortium that will steward xAPI into perpetuity — a table for other industries to sit and work out the ways xAPI will meet their particular needs. I’m talking about HR systems, medical devices, folks who make beacons and sensors, manufacturing, energy companies, engineers, school administrators. There are other groups who we aren’t talking with already and they’ll make their needs known. We’ll have certification tests. This will make it easy for folks buying software or hardware to see a stamp of approval — a neutral third party guarantees a product is 100% Grade A xAPI. With it, the industry that makes xAPI software and hardware will have to grow up. With it, new job titles, new practices, new competencies and new goals will be born out of those titles, practices, competencies and goals we already have, from wherever we are are.

Megan and I had a great, long, long-overdue and well-earned vacation road-tripping through mountains before and after xAPI Camp – Amazon. Reflecting now it couldn’t be a more apt way for us to vacation and get ready for what’s coming. xAPI is gaining highway speed. It’s gonna be surprising and exciting. We’re going to work harder than ever to keep apace with adoption, solidifying what we have and making it flexible for even more adoption. With every climb, we’re going to see something way more epic than before.

In Arapahoe, view from a windshield about to turn into a curveSo I say, “Welcome,” to the coming early majority. Welcome to xAPI.

Thank you to everyone who makes xAPI Camp happen. Our hosts. Our supporters and sponsors and partners. Our speakers! Brian Dusablon, who’s one of the best Experience Ninja around, working invisibly behind the scenes to make each event amazing for our participants. And to our participants: you are creating an active and vivrant community that is going to transform multiple industries. Through your activity and participation, you’re building something huge that’s purely driven by a shared goal: to improve ourselves, the places we work and the world we live in.

Let’s go, team. We all got work to do. We now have more horsepower and we’re gaining speed. Let’s keep our eyes on the road ahead and not just the mile marker we hit.

Put the pedal to the metal — and hang on. 🙂

Filed Under: DISC, Standards, Uncategorized Tagged With: adoption, consortium, xAPI

xAPI Camp – DevLearn: Call for Proposals Ends 8/10

August 4, 2015 By Aaron

Connections Forum

The next xAPI Camp is taking place at DevLearn on September 29, 2015. We have a number of proposals already, but we want to see more.

We are looking for brand new stories of you or your company using xAPI. We’re looking for new lessons learned. We’re looking for big ideas and big challenges that will blow minds and spark a multitude of conversations — not just during xAPI Camp but all week long at DevLearn. We want stories to inspire, to caution, to support and to challenge us all to be doing better.

Our presentations run from 7-12 minutes long. We will be strict about that in delivery, but incredibly supportive to help you shine.

There’s no guarantee of selection if you submit something and sponsorship is not considered for selection — we welcome vendors, consultants and stakeholders to present as well as practitioners, designers, engineers, managers and leaders. You can propose multiple topics.

We’ll give honest feedback on how to improve your proposals, whether we accept them or not. We’re looking to curate the best possible experience for all participants, including our presenters. In every way we want you to be part of it and we want to make being part of it — even the proposal process — worthwhile. You’re taking the time to share your very best. We’re curating ideas and expertise for a specific experience design. You’re taking this seriously. So are we.

Presenting at an xAPI Camp puts you in the vanguard of the vanguard of where learning, design and technology meet. There’s no pitching. We’re not advertising our services. We’re creating the space and the reason to have serious, relevant conversations that need to happen with trusted expertise so people can get answers and take action on their next steps to work with xAPI.

Are you up for it? Because we need you — especially if you don’t think you’re up for it.

But… if you want to be considered for DevLearn, we need those proposals submitted by Friday, August 10. All speakers and sponsors will be announced on or before August 15, 2015.

Filed Under: xAPI Camp Tagged With: call for proposals, devlearn, xapi camp

xAPI Shifting to 3rd Gear

August 3, 2015 By Aaron

Mark Oehlert kicking off xAPI Camp - AmazonYou might be surprised to find out we’re in 2nd gear. We shifted out of 1st gear at DevLearn last year. Between November 2014’s xAPI Hyperdrive and the xAPI track at DevLearn 2014, we hit our stride. We had people well outside of the ADL bubble talking about real world things things they were using xAPI to accomplish.

What happened at xAPI Camp Amazon?

This wasn’t merely a great event. This was a game changer. The participants, including the speakers and our partners — this event really couldn’t have come out more epic than it did.

Let me talk a bit about our speakers. They are not messing around. All killer, no filler high-octane Awesome. We got Sean Putman to come in from Detroit to talk about what he all did with Altair’s software and xAPI. Ben Erlandsson, who’s working on the boldest and most complex application for xAPI I’ve ever encountered — and how xAPI stands to help make the most impact of any social initiative to date. Myra Travin came from across town in Seattle to articulate the field of learning experience design in a way that really made sense. Kirsty Kitto and Aneesha Bakharia are rockstars in research that’s driving the learning analytics field — and they’re pointing out ways in which we need to be using xAPI better. Bill McDonald spent 25 years helping run the Aviation Industry’s Computer-Based Training Consortium, eventually overseeing their own standard evolve to be completely based on xAPI. Russell Duhon talking about what it takes to run xAPI in Enterprise… at scale. Duncan Welder talking about the ways in which their LMS is helping Big Energy improve their compliance — not just get a check in the compliance training box, using xAPI for both content analytics and social. Their presentations are all archived here.

A breakout group at xAPI Camp - AmazonThese speakers were incredible people, many of whom are outside the xAPI Developer/Contributor/Adopter circles. Real folks making real decisions about real world problems and using xAPI to help. They’re haulin’ ass.We had small emergent breakout groups and large breakout groups moderated by our partners Shelly Blake-Plock, Mike Hruska and Nick Washburn. Participants got into the weeds of learning architecture, project management and scaling the technology to respond to growing organizational demands in near real-time. Everything discussed was approachable in real-world, real-human language but nothing was watered down. People took notes and tasked themselves for next-actions. Attendees were solving real problems while they were there.

The format for the event worked, it really worked. Myra Travin saw so much in it that she wrote a post on just how well it worked. You can read it on LearnxAPI.

Why was this camp so significant?

No matter what Amazon does with xAPI, their embrace of xAPI, even to bring the community to their house so we could learn together — what xAPI enables and (frankly) what value xAPI holds for them — is huge. Just huge.

You need a company to reference when asked, “Who’s doing xAPI?”

Your answer now is “Amazon.” Done. Mic drop.

Because when we talk about the future of learning, usually our professionals from ISDs to CLOs immediately talk about recommendations… “like Amazon.”  Every conference that talks about elearning at all — K-12, Higher Ed, Community Colleges, Corporate, Gov, .mil — everyone talks about recommendations “like how Amazon does it.”

…And even Amazon is going xAPI.

You hold onto that for a moment. Let that thought just linger in the air a bit. Enjoy it. Savor it. This is the kind of moment — those of us who’ve helped make xAPI happen — this is the moment we’ve been waiting for. Given their engineering culture, given their fanatical attention to customer service, given their massive supply chain and the people power it takes to make all of those parts work in harmony, xAPI could not have a better stakeholder.

It marks the beginning of the end of early adoption for xAPI. You go back to the bell curve model of Rogers’ Diffusions of Innovations theory. We hit the level taking us to Early Majority.

This is the shift from 2nd to 3rd gear. There’s more to be done. It’s not just events, it’s not just fancy new adopters. There’s a post coming later this week on what has to happen next. (Hint: we need to formalize our work together to make sure what the early majority is doing keeps working and makes the space to iron out the wrinkles existing today.)

Filed Under: Experience API, xAPI Camp Tagged With: amazon, recap, xAPI, xapi camp

The Web Conference at Penn State

June 24, 2015 By Aaron

The Web Conference at Penn State brings together professionals from graphic design, front-end development, content strategy, accessibility, information architecture, instructional design, online marketing, and other interactive technology fields to gain a better understanding of how these elements must work in harmony. Stevie Rocco has helped to organize this annual event over the past several years. When she reached out to us both to present at this year’s conference, we jumped at the opportunity.

Megan participated on an open panel on innovation with our friend, Brian Dusablon where the audience posed questions about learning analytics and design, and on Tuesday both of us presented: Megan, on learning analytics and me, on competencies As always, the most important part of participating in an event like the Web Conference at Penn State is the people.

Together with Brian, we brought our summer interns with for the conference. From Shawn Rosler, we had a great refresher in mobile performance support.

Interns Learning About Mobile Performance Support

Steve Howard was particularly helpful in supporting learning analytics in Higher Ed.

Supporting Learning Analytics in Higher Ed

Opening Up Professional Development

Something Megan observed was how many folks from Penn State participated in the conference. With a few hundred attendees from all over the country (and the world), across multiple domains, Megan took particular note of the opportunity PSU presented to its faculty and staff by having such a conference, bringing diverse insights and expertise to co-mingle with their own for a few days, and we wonder about what conversations at the Web Conference inspire in terms of new ideas, execution on existing (or even nascent) programs at the University.

We have a similar take on this approach with our series of xAPI Camps: bringing inside expertise and interest from outside of organizations and communities. Penn State accomplishes this at a scale of hundreds over multiple days. While scaling, there’s a real feeling of community and family here. Through family-friendly activities, plenty of food and drink (attendance demands stretchy pants for the bounty of feasting to be had), it’s a gem of a conference.

Presentations

We offered two new presentations at the  Web Conference.

Megan’s talk on learning analytics focused on data that learning professionals who are jumping into analytics can get today and what we can know from that data, focusing on what is actionable.

My talk on xAPI addressed some of the theoretical foundations of the Experience API, as well as formational ideas on the competencies needed by professionals to work with xAPI.

Filed Under: Experience API

xAPI Camp: Call for Proposals

June 2, 2015 By Aaron

xAPI Camp Banner

Lots of news this week regarding xAPI Camps!

First off, it is now confirmed that our xAPI Camp – Seattle is actually (get ready for this)… xAPI Camp – Amazon. That’s right, kids. We’re going to be at Amazon’s HQ in Seattle on July 21 for a full day of xAPI awesomeness.

We now have four xAPI Camps we’re scheduling for:

21 July – Amazon (Seattle, WA)

29 September – DevLearn (Las Vegas, NV)

17 November – CSTD (Toronto, ON) – tentative date

15 March 2016 – Learning Solutions (Orlando, FL)

Which means we have a call for proposals going on starting TODAY — because the above camps are just what’s scheduled as of today. There are more in the works already through 2016.

After much feedback on our first xAPI Camp, we now have four types of sessions that will go into any xAPI Camp. We are encouraging everyone with a case study, a big challenge, a big idea or a lesson learned to sign up. So you know…

  1. A Case Study is a real implementation of xAPI.
  2. A Big Challenge describes a tough problem for your organization that requires a group of smart people to help with.
  3. A Big Idea is a possible use of xAPI that could catch on with help.
  4. A Lesson Learned comes from a place of love, where you would spare others the time it took for you to learn it. It can be super geeky.

We’re ready! Are you?

START PROPOSING

Filed Under: Case Study, Community, Experience API

Stop Choosing the High Chair

May 28, 2015 By Aaron

High Chair

High ChairI’ve spent a lot of time over the last four years learning how to talk about xAPI to senior leaders in organizations. Throughout my career, many Managers and Directors above me in various Learning Departments didn’t know how to talk to their C-Suite leaders. I feel like L&D has been teaching ourselves how to talk to executive leadership. Some of those lessons are things we need to stop teaching.

I recently had the opportunity to join a CLO Magazine breakfast in downtown Chicago. At this breakfast, there was a panel of senior leaders from academia, a rather large organization and a major LMS vendor. From both the leaders and the moderator, the call to action was clear: derive learning objectives from the business objectives and support those business objectives. Right after the panel discussion, each table broke into small group discussions about this topic. At my table the conversation turned, as it does, to the solution “learning needs a seat at the table.”

Seems like making a direct impact on business objectives is the seat at the table; these are the same thing. The disconnect struck me. Learning folks, like myself, are a bit meta and we may be missing what our value proposition is within an organization. Most of the company is looking externally, outside of the organization, trying to find ways to make the most of what the company is producing. The learning team is the only team who is charged with looking inside the company and finding ways to help work get done better, faster, happier. Making the most of what the company is producing from the inside.

We already have a seat at the table. It turns out we can choose any seat at the table we want. The problem is that many of us (and I use “us” because of good manners invokes “the royal ‘we’”) keep choosing the one with the booster seat on it. We wait for the pat on the head that will comfort us and grant us the permission to act on our “if only…” ideas. “If only we could support iPhones.” “If only we could get the evaluation data we needed.” “If only we didn’t have to build courseware.”

If only…

I’m going to propose something radical.

If you are in learning, education and/or training at any level, you have an objective that supports all business objectives: it is Improvement. You own this. If you are in learning & development, Improvement is the contribution you make to the business.

What will you do to make improvement better? What will you do to make it so in demand that you can charge a premium for it? How will you grow your business of improvement?

What I’m daring to tell you, L&D leaders, is that you’re in a market where you can cater to individual demands for Improvement. The assembly line model that stamps out the same thing for everyone isn’t good enough anymore; not when you can offer Improvement that is right-fit for a particular audience. Improvement is core to your whole reason for being in business — certainly the reason why you’re part of a bigger business. Improvement isn’t the powerpoint slides or the way in which you deliver it. Improvement is whatever it takes to make. shit. better.

If you want to argue how something like xAPI isn’t learning (or just fill-in-the-blank isn’t learning), because it’s more about performance… who else in the business cares about that academic debate? Your job is making Improvement… not making content. Yes-and, folks. Jump in and help the business grow.

Start with owning Improvement.

With this mindset, assume you already have the seat you crave at the table, because you do. You can do whatever the hell you want to make things better in the organization. The only thing your other business leaders demand is that the outcomes of your actions need to be accountable to the business. Connect the dots, show the leaders how you helped people improve to meet, and maybe even, exceed their objectives.

Let me make it abundantly clear. If you’ve ever said “we need a seat at the table,” I want you to imagine that you have it. Now ask yourself “What will I do now that I have a seat at the table?” If you know… you don’t need the permission. You need to act in the best interests of the business, and make that act count.

You can have any seat at the table you want. Stop choosing the high chair*.

*Note: This whole line must truly be credited to Salima Nathoo.

Filed Under: Community

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