Future-Focused with Christopher Lind

Regardless of the function you’re in or the industry your company serves, #digitaltransformation is affecting everyone. Yet, it is estimated that somewhere to the tune of 70% of digital transformations fail. That’s because digital transformation isn’t about simply seeking out the latest in tech and layering it on top of the way work is done today. Making it a success requires diagnosing root issues to identify opportunities where the change will net the greatest return. It also requires diligence and discipline to ensure efforts not only make it to market but remain sustainable. In this episode, I’m talking with Aurimas Adomavicius, President at DevBridge, about the mindset, process, and capabilities required to do digital right.

There’s a reason YouTube boasts over 1.9 billion users with over 500 hours of video content every minute. The reason is video is an extremely powerful tool for a multitude of use-cases. Whether it’s an inspirational messaging about the latest organizational change or a clip highlighting the most efficient way to repair a product on the front line, video can be a powerful way to drive organizational success. Unfortunately, creating video within an organization can be a lot more complicated and overwhelming than people realize, especially when attempting to do it at scale. Fortunately, technology is making it easier and democratizing this capability, making it easy and manageable for the masses to create content. In this episode, I talk with Sunil Gaitonde and Shridhar Shukla about the value of video for learning, communication, and change management. We’ll also gain a better understanding of the way kPoint is making it easy.

There’s a number of well-known tools out there that many are familiar with for creating digital learning content. However, many of these tools require an advanced skillset and reduce the speed at which content can be created. This is especially dangerous at a time when content needs to be created and delivered faster than ever before. Unfortunately, it’s easy to mitigate this challenge by using basic office tools for content creation, which doesn’t create a desirable user experience. So, how do we get the simple and rapid capability without sacrificing the designer and learner experience? In this episode, I talk with Kasper Spiro about how we can best address the iron triangle of digital learning content and the way EasyGenerator was designed to address this challenge.

While content has an important role in the growth and development of employees, it also requires dialogue, reflection, practice, and feedback. In other words, content needs context and collaboration. Is it possible to create that type of learning environment digitally? This was one of the biggest challenges faced by learning organizations faced in 2020 as they fought to maintain the quality of experiences while delivering them in an unfamiliar way. Now, while technology isn’t a silver bullet that makes it happen, the right tech is an important step in going digital without sacrificing quality while increasing scale and impact In this episode, Todd Moran and Juan Morán, NovoEd’s Chief Learning Strategist and Solutions Consultant, and I will be exploring the possibilities and impact of collaborative online learning and bust the myth that digital is somehow a second-class experience. We’ll also explore NovoEd and its portfolio of capabilities and discuss what it takes to engage learners, promote accountability, and strengthen and sustain learning across the enterprise.

When it comes to skills, it can feel like they’re changing so fast it’s impossible to develop them before they’re extinct. However, one timeless skill not only remains at the top of nearly every priority list but spans across every role and function. What skill am I talking about? Communication. However, in order to improve a diverse and complicated skill like communication, you have to start by breaking apart the broader skill into the unique capabilities and create a personalized development pathway. Unfortunately, this type of assessment and personalized pathway was almost impossible to scale across an organization. On today’s episode of Learning Tech Talks, Noah Zandan and I are talking about what it really takes to tackle this kind of challenge and why technology is the only way to make it a reality. We’ll also dig into the unique and measurable ways Quantified Communications is solving this problem.

The landscape of #learning and #hrtech continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, and it can sometimes feel impossible to stay current. In the first Learning Tech Talks of 2021 Matthew Daniel, Jeff Lowndes, and I decided to collectively share our predictions and insights into what we’re seeing in the market as well as the growing maturity of organizations around the globe. We discuss everything from the continued progress of #AI to #talentmobility, the real value behind the rapidly growing talent marketplace. We also highlighted some practical ways you can embark on this journey regardless of where you are on the learning maturity curve or the size of your team and budget. This is a conversation you won't want to miss.

Whether it’s curating content from a variety of sources, improving the learning experience through personalization, developing employee skills, or predicting and measuring the impact of the work we do there’s no shortage of opportunity for technology to enhance the way we work together. Historically we’ve patiently, and sometimes impatiently, waited for the LMS to improve its capability stack to meet these needs. However, perhaps we were waiting for the wrong acronym to solve our problem. Enter in the LXP. Now, while there’s a growing number of platforms out there aligning themselves to the acronym, far fewer truly fit the LXP mold. In this episode, that’s exactly what we’re talking about as I chat with Janne Hietala. We’ll discuss the current state of the industry while highlighting the different ways Valamis has designed its platform to solve these monumental challenges.

Keeping all the assets, resources, and programs organized while analyzing needs, delivering and forecasting what will be needed in the future is a piece of cake, right? And, it’s not as if the events of 2020, distributed workers, and global organizations make things any more difficult. There’s a lot more complexity in managing a successful learning function than people often realize. After all, when done well, it takes a lot more than throwing together a problem and shoving it out the door. In this episode, John Pebbles and I are going to break down the complexities of the learning supply chain and talk about many of the different ways technology like Administrate are making the management and measurement of our efforts easier.

Preparing for your first job or transitioning into a new field is overwhelming. Developing the skills you’ll need, understanding the terminology, and being able to tell a compelling story during an interview is a lot for any individual to take on, especially at the pace roles are changing. This overwhelming task has only been made more challenging by the events of 2020. Fortunately, technology is making it easier. Not only is today’s tech able to rapidly and continuously evaluate market skills, curate resources, and create a personalized path designed to land you the job, it’s also connecting people to the jobs where they can put them to work. In this episode, Ahmed El-Sharkasy and I are going to be talking about how machine learning is simplifying this overwhelming process and how KnowledgeOfficer is taking the skill measurement and development a step further by connecting that development to landing that new job.

Everyone is talking about modifying and developing the skills of the workforce, but so many are struggling to figure out what to do about it. One of the most significant challenges is that each individual is different and brings with them their own unique skills, experiences, and opportunities for growth. While formal training can play a role, research shows us that coaching can dramatically improve the effectiveness and sustainability of the change. Unfortunately, organizations often fail to include or limit this necessary layer due to the limitations of traditional coaching. In this episode I’m talking with Kristy Mccann Flynn about the importance of coaching at all levels of the organization. We’ll also talk about how that need led her to co-found @GoCoach to help organizations address this need at scale.