Speexx Exchange Podcast Episode 16: Curiosity in the Digital Age and the New Normal

On this special episode of the Speexx Exchange podcast, Donald interviews not one but three people – co-authors of the book “The Curious Advantage” (Simon Brown, Garrett Jones and Paul Ashcroft). The four of them discuss curiosity in relationship to learning; how people can be “better” at being curious; and the seven C’s of curiosity model – a useful tool for anyone wanting to lead a curious organization, or who wants to challenge him- or herself to be actively curious.

The Curious Advantage can be purchased on Amazon: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Paul-Ashcroft-ebook/dp/B08931WBT9

Link to the book's website: https://curiousadvantage.com/

About the authors:

Simon Brown is the Chief Learning Officer at Novartis.

Garrick Jones is Co-Founder and Partner at Ludic.

Paul Ashcroft is Co-Founder and Partner at Ludic.

In this most recent episode of the Speexx Exchange podcast, host Donald Taylor has a conversation with Helen Smyth, Group Digital Learning and Design Manager at a leading UK retailer. She shares what she learned about learning during the COVID lockdown period. Donald is nothing short of impressed when Helen details how her organization was able to onboard 25,000 people – online! – during this time. They also trade thoughts on how the pandemic has actually instilled some good learning behavior in all of us. Finally, Helen offers some of her thoughts on what’s to come next in this “new normal” – for instance, that we’ve probably accelerated lots of things in training and development, and actually utilized items in our “L&D toolbox” that we haven’t taken advantage of before. The pair explore how learning is likely to be much more embedded within what Josh Bersin calls “the flow of work” moving forward.

In this episode, host Donald Taylor interviews analytics consultant Derek Mitchell, who has a serious passion for measuring the impact of training and development activity. They talk about learning data and analytics from the past few months, with work forces adapting to a global pandemic, and also make projections about the skills needed in a post-COVID future. Derek explains why people in the field of L&D and training are historically wary of data and demonstrates the benefits of “experimenting” with data in the field of L&D (providing his own professional experiences as examples). He and Donald urge training managers to use the data they already have in a more effective way, and insist that the data is already “in the room”; among the many valuable and unique suggestions that Derek gives listeners during this podcast is: “Have high-quality biscuits in the room.” Intrigued by this piece of advice? Then listen in (and be prepared to start craving cookies!).

Dr. Hannah Gore, Learning Experience Director at The Canonbury Consultancy Group, is an award-winning learning expert who challenges and evolves organizations’ approach to L&D and people development. This includes taking elements of traditional techniques (coaching, classroom training, instructional design), then blending them with modern approaches like digital content, virtual classroom, gamifications and more to create learning experiences that work.

She and Don discuss developing online content in this “new normal” and Hannah addresses what people are doing wrong when it comes to putting content online during these work from home, learn from home times: specifically – people putting PowerPoints onto SharePoint and calling it online learning. She claims that this is not online learning, but merely some learning that has been put online.

Hannah, who has developed and produced tons of MOOCs (indeed, she has produced, written and presented over 300 of them!) encourages L&D people to really get into the science of learning design at this time.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HRgore

Blog/other sites: www.DrHannahGore.com

In this special episode, Donald and Sarah Sullivan, Speexx’ Head of Digital Content & Communications, reflect on the current state of learning, and how it’s changed - and will continue to evolve - since the emergence of COVID-19. They discuss the results from Speexx and Donald Taylor’s joint survey, which asked the following question of HR and L&D managers worldwide: What will be the three biggest challenges for corporate L&D in the new age of learning from home?

Donald and Sarah explore the ways in which L&D priorities have shifted since the pandemic’s arrival, and discuss how to best keep learners engaged in this “work from anywhere” era; how to ensure you have the best tech setup for all remote workers and learners; how to onboard a new employee when literally no one is physically in the traditional office; why soft skills remain important, even when going completely virtual; and how to most quickly and efficiently adopt F2F curricula to digital. Valuable insights and predictions from other podcast guests, like Kinga Petrovai, Bob Mosher and Hannah Gore, can be found in this episode as well.

Visit www.speexx.com for more information.

Links:

Speexx & Donald Taylor Remote Learning/Virtual Teams Global Sentiment Survey: https://www.speexx.com/speexx-blog/5-tips-for-adapting-digital-content-in-the-new-era-of-learning-from-home/

Donald Taylor Global Sentiment Survey: https://donaldhtaylor.co.uk/research_base/the-global-sentiment-survey-2020/

The Annual Speexx Exchange Survey: https://www.speexx.com/speexx-resources/effective-skills-development/

Kinga Petrovai is an educational specialist working at the intersection of research and practice

Twitter: https://twitter.com/p_kinga

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kinga-petrovai-phd-30b7a539/

Previous podcast episode with Kinga: https://soundcloud.com/speexxexchange/ep-11-the-promise-pitfalls-of-learning-technologies

Bob Mosher is the CEO and Chief Learning Evangelist of Apply Synergies

Twitter: twitter.com/bmosh

Previous podcast episode with Bob: https://soundcloud.com/speexxexchange/ep-10-workflow-learning-solutions-five-moments-of-learning-need

Hannah Gore is a learning experience consultant who specializes in a number of different areas in L&D, including design and engagement

Twitter: twitter.com/@HRGore

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahgore/?originalSubdomain=uk

Kinga Petrovai is an educational specialist working at the intersection of research and practice. She and Don talk through practical, useful and researched-based information on how people learn, and the role of learning technologies in various strategies. Kinga points out precisely where the adoption of technology very often stumbles and warns that a lack of technical understanding, coupled with overenthusiasm, can hinder learning, as this might stall an instructor or coach’s adoption of said technology. They also discuss what “learning science” really is, and how people often mistake a platform (like TV or radio) versus actual content as that which will revolutionize learning.

Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/p_kinga

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kinga-petrovai-phd-30b7a539/

At the helm of Apply Synergies, CEO and Chief Learning Evangelist Bob Mosher has a wealth of experience helping learning organizations design, develop and measure effective learning and performance strategies to meet the “five moments of learning need.” Donald has Bob walk through these moments, which are: Apply, change, solve, and finally, learn new things, then learn even more new things. The pair share transformational learning best practices and suggestions on how to begin putting learning in an organization’s workflow.

Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bmosh

Apply Synergies: https://www.applysynergies.com

Website: https://www.5momentsofneed.com/

5 Moments Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szij1czDXMs

Bob on ‘Workflow Learning’: https://learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/2352/learning-leaders-bob-mosher-advocates-workflow-learning

Book: https://www.mhprofessional.com/9780071703116-usa-innovative-performance-support-strategies-and-practices-for-learning-in-the-workflow-group

Writer, researcher and founder of Sea Salt Learning’s Julian Stodd talks to Don about social leadership, social learning and the importance of storytelling. Julian describes older, more outdated models of learning and contrasts them with the newer concept of “social learning” – when regular people, each with their own understandings of the world, make sense of things together. After all, learning is ultimately part of – or a response to – storytelling! The pair also discuss how senior managers, in particular, need not focus so much on storytelling, but instead, zero in on story listening skills; this allows management to better enable employees to speak up and share stories of their own. Listen in to also learn about three different types of narrative, and why they’re practical tools for instructional design.

Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JulianStodd

Julian’s blog: https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/

Sea Salt Learning: https://seasaltlearning.com/

Founder of Owl’s Ledge Trish Uhl chats with Donald about how to apply AI, data science and advanced analytics to organizational learning to achieve significant impact and business results. She tells the story about the Mars bar “hunger algorithm,” detailing how the chocolate company used smart conversational analysis to understand human behavior, and shows how this can be replicated in the field of L&D. Trish explores “engineering” learning systems, how to connect training environments to operational environments, and demonstrates how her team is doing this through the use of chatbots. Listen in to get a sense of how chatbots provide learning insights by connecting instruction to integration to implementation. Oh, and that app kids these days are using – TikTok? Trish is convinced that this is the future of learning, and it’s changing the way that we provide learning solutions for the TikTok-consuming cohort over the next three to five years.

Trish can be found via:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/trishuhl

Links:

Snickers campaign: https://www.adweek.com/creativity/media-plan-of-the-year-best-in-show/

Book: Transfer of Training by Mary Broad and John Newstrom, 1992: https://www.amazon.com/Transfer-Training-Action-packed-Strategies-Investment/dp/0201192748

Coach M: https://transferoflearning.com/services/chatbot/

Coaching bot developed by Emma Weber: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmaweber/

TorranceLearning CEO Megan Torrance explains how she helps create custom online, live and blended learning solutions to quickly and cost-effectively meet needs. She shares her expertise on xAPI, a data specification for how we talk about learning and performance experiences, and describes how it does much more than SCORM. Listen in to get up to speed on xAPI to better track the learning that happens outside of your company’s e-learning and learning management systems – quickly, before xAPI replaces SCORM!

Megan can be found via:

Twitter https://twitter.com/MMTorrance

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/megantorrance/

Website https://www.torrancelearning.com/

Links:

xAPI Cohort sign up: www.xapicohort.com

eLearning Guild research report (free to Guild members, which is free): https://www.elearningguild.com/insights/242/2019-the-state-of-xapi-adoption/

xAPI Party program & recordings (as of Dec 2 this has last spring’s Party info but by time the podcast goes live it will have the new one): http://torrancelearning.com/conference/schedule/index.html?event=xapi