Future-Focused with Christopher Lind

Education as a benefit is an effective way to attract talent. Unfortunately, many employer education benefits are unintentionally discriminatory in their design by assuming employees have the means to cover costs and wait to be reimbursed. Moreso, we are finding that employees that are already educated have more access to education, and a large chunk of the American workforce is left out of this equation. As learning leaders, we have an obligation to our learners to provide the necessary tools to complete their job, but also to provide opportunities for learners to excel beyond their role and place in the workforce. In this Learning Tech Talks, I’m chatting with familiar face Matthew Daniel over at Guild Education about creating economic and talent mobility in communities by providing higher education to front-line workers.

***Apologies for my stadium audio...I limited my talking as much as possible, but JD Dillon sound fantastic*** Will society ever return to normal post-pandemic? It’s hard to say without society being post-pandemic yet, but I hope not. We’ve had an opportunity to learn a lot over the last two years, and it would be unfortunate if all those lessons faded in an attempt to return to the way things were. I believe the attention brought to front-line workers was much needed and here to stay and hope the learning strategies employed during the pandemic successfully continue without the pandemic demand. In this Learning Tech Talks, I’m chatting with show alum JD Dillon from Axonify to revisit previous conversations from the last couple years through the optimistic lens of a post-pandemic society. We'll highlight how managers have learned and adapted with their teams and walk through some of the successes and failures that L&D pushed through and ways that we can continue to innovate in the space for the #futureofwork.

Work is changing; people are changing; technology is changing.  And, the state of things continues to pour gasoline on the fire.  What does it all mean?  A lot of things, but one that's consistent is the landscape is rich with opportunity for our field to make a demonstratable impact on the performance of our organizations as well as the performance and well-being of our people.  In a last-minute shift, this Learning Tech Talks highlights some of the biggest happenings across all three areas based on a multitude of recent conversations and the latest industry data.

Effective learning is all about precision. As billions of VC capital flows into reskilling startups, questions arise for practitioners as they look for the right model and content for their learners. A generalized blanket is thrown over the word  ‘reskill’ and often used to market reskilling to everyone for everything! While I believe a proper framework has been developed,  precision reskilling is starting to come into focus, as many find that their specific reskilling needs cannot be met through a  one-size-fits-all solution. In this Learning Tech Talks, I’m narrowing down reskilling with Kian Katanforoosh, Co-founder and CEO of Workera.ai to separate their approach from available industry solutions with their niche reskilling solution directed towards AI and machine learning through scalable mentorship with a heightened emphasis on learners' preexisting capabilities to drive measurable results and retain top talent.

Are you leading a digital transformation or a tech refresh? The semantics matter a lot more today than they did a few years ago. Digital transformation is no longer a competitive advantage, but a competitive necessity.  Leadership wants results from their digital investments, and decisions must be quantified to be understood and accounted for.  Too many learning leaders focus on solutions first and strategy second.  Purchase the license and THEN we’ll figure out how to make the software work for them. Wrong answer. If we want to transform anything moving forward in the #futureofwork it needs to be how we look at problems not how we pay for problems.  In this Learning Tech Talks, Raj Sundarason, author and founder of The DAP Strategist, is joining me to unpack the root meaning of adoption, the layers underneath, and discover how it can redirect guidance for learning leaders by narrowing their focus on the optimization of processes before premature investments in tech.  We'll highlight how to support the "Baby User" and how it pertains to the general outlook for learning leaders as they are rolling out and updating software and applications. 

What is an education without experience?   The argument of ‘education’ vs ‘experience’ is often presented as a  false dichotomy. The idea of one being more valuable than the other is something that I don’t believe can ever be universally established at face value. Education IS experience; however, the application of education is a separate experience that builds on the momentum to create who we are in our respective careers.    In this Learning Tech Talks, I’m interning with Adam Alpert, CEO & Cofounder of Pangea.app to get a better picture of their platform and what it’s providing for undergraduate and recent graduate students on their learning journey by finding freelance work in their respective studies and getting paid for developing their talent and consequently building a framework for their future careers.

How is it that in our ever-connected digital world we can still feel disconnected from our teams? As somewhat of an ambassador for digital learning technology, I’m still waiting for a product that is able to connect me to the same energy I’ve had with in-person teams. I’m not saying it can’t be done virtually as  I’ve had some amazing energy with teams that have operated 100% remote. Yet  I can’t help but think about the quality talent that doesn’t function well in a remote environment with the current tech available. With more organizations going remote, what are we doing to best serve these individuals needs to function in a high-performing digital environment? In this Learning Tech Talks, I’m serving a volley to Josh Little, CEO & Founder of Volley to hear more about his passion for communication and how that has changed, for better and for worse, in the #futureofwork. We'll also see how to help emulate the energy in physical conversations through asynchronous video chats that serve to build team relationships in a more genuine way that also takes up less time but also has the ability to communicate more. I had the pleasure to test out the platform and I’m really excited to dig more into more of the features and functionalities.

Coaching and mentoring are often used synonymously in the corporate world, but there are some distinct differences between the two. Mentors often have specialized experience in their field and can say ‘Hey, to be successful at what I do, you need to do xyz’ without the input of the mentee.   Coaches are more intentional in their approach by helping individuals uncover their own knowledge and skills and facilitating coachees to become their own advisors. In this Learning Tech Talks, I’m blowing the whistle with Laura Chapin from CoachHub - The digital coaching platform to discuss why digital coaching is all the rage and an important capability in developing the workforce. We’ll also help make sense of all the noise around digital coaching and talk about how to create sustainable learning and behavioral change in organizations by creating a personalized, measurable and scalable coaching program for the entire workforce.

The hunt for skills has only just begun. Investing in skill development has finally gone mainstream over the traditional "hire what we don’t have" approach. Is this shift in strategy driven by free will or forced demand? I’m not convinced that the talent pool is shrinking, but rather a new pool has formed and is waiting to be filled. Talent pools were often a  naturally occurring phenomenon outside of the workplace and are now something that learning leaders need to develop strategically. In this Learning Tech Talks, I'm continuing my conversation with Mikaël Wornoo from TechWolf about improving an organization's ability to find and action against the skills of their workforce. We'll highlight how roles and future roles can be filled without the overhead of traditional methods using AI and NLP to empower every individual,  boost HR, and boost business.

I've seen it too many times. On paper, this 'disruptive' software will save millions, increase productivity, and offer countless benefits from the previous way of  doing things. And then it doesn't. GASP! Top-down management and software don’t always jive well together. It’s more like an interpretive dance. Sweet moves, Zuck! Senior leaders need to make decisions FAST  but often overlook implementation and adaptability. Experimenting to find the right balance is often risky and time-consuming. Considering that this happens in every organization at every level you would think we would have this figured out by now. In this Learning Tech Talks, I’m talking dad-to-dad with Krishna Dunthoori, founder and CEO of Apty to hear about the digital adoption horror stories that drove him to find a solution to make complicated enterprise software simpler and quicker to adopt. Building a foundation with on-screen guidance,  Krishna continues to work towards solving the deeper-rooted problem of process compliance with a full portfolio of solutions in an all-in-one package to solve unique problems at scale.