As I read the blog I'd like to post a few updates on our research and predictions for e-learning in 2008.
1. Social Networking is hitting the corporate scene, driving tremendous demand for informal learning, or what we call "learning on-demand." The solutions organizations are looking for include blogs, wikis, and communities of practice. The CoP companies we talk with tell us that their businesses are booming (Tomoye and Mzinga being two which focus heavily in this space).
We just surveyed 800+ worldwide training directors and CLOs and found that 83% feel they have a significant or urgent need to change their learning programs to deal with the learning styles of younger workers. And despite this need, only 35% feel that they have the tools and experience to do this today.
What we expect to happen in 2008 is an explosion in the use of "self-published content"- that is solutions which enable learners to reach out and support each other. Organizations which do this today include Cisco, IBM, Symantec, Infosys, and many more. In fact, this is something which is relatively easy to do - if you remember that your role is to "facilitate"this content interchange, not "create content."
2. E-Learning, as defined, is not as successful as one may believe. I have to say, I started working in e-learning before the term was coined and spent much of my career over the last 10 years in the development, analysis, and research in this topic. I figured that by now we would have "figured it out." This is not the case. In fact, in the same research I cited above (to be published this Spring), only 19% of organizations feel they are doing a good job at building "high-impact"courseware, 13% at building simulations and other higher fidelity forms of training, and most surprising of all, only 23% feel that they are doing a good job at blended learning.
This really suprised me. While many large organizations are doing quite well at this, far more are still behind the curve. I believe the problem is that the complexity of e-learning grows each year, and now we consider searchable content, audio, video, and web 2.0 interactions as "standard" for all internet applications. Content which is in the early 2000s "page turning" style has become very boring and hard to complete.
Anyway, much more to talk about but I'll keep this short. Please contact me at (510) 654-8500 or visit our website for more - we're publishing our 2008 predictions this week. (www.bersin.com)
