A point made by presenter Enzo Silva  on our webcast today was that millenial talent is not afraid to make mistakes and that they live and thrive in a “perpetual beta environment.”   Presenter Jeanne Meister added that the new approach to learning is based on user-generated content that is collaborative and personalized.  These are exciting elements that would undoubtedly lead to innovation. 

How are those innovative break-thru’s captured when they may be published in multiple social networking sites?  

What are some of examples of meeting challenges with mobile learning (“learning to go”) for people learning on the job out in the field?

HCI members, please share your related thoughts and questions on today’s webcast , Leveraging Learning Innovations for Millenial Talent Managment, in our new e-learning track Innovation & Creativity…

Hope you’ll get started in a lively dialog on these questions and related issues:

 Our presenter Enzo Silva asks: What do YOU think the future of learning has in store for the next generation?

HCI members’ thoughts:

The future of learning would be self driven rather than driven by the organisation. people would find out what they need to grow and then go in for self learning mechanisms to grow up the ladder

HCI member asks: How are service organizations that require face-to-face customer interaction and behavior change using gaming to implement learning that drives behavior and creates a personal customer experience?

HCI member asks: When we talk of learning how do we teach people what is to be learnt in laboratories and in places where one needs to do certain research to get the answer.

HCI member asks: What is true? If all info is obtained through the social media, isn’t it possible for something that isn’t true to be understood as true?

HCI member asks: How are companies that are heavy manufacturing and engineering applying this type of learning when not all of your workforce has access to computers?

HCI member asks: Is Sun Designing Learning in multi-modes to reach a variety of learning styles (i.e a game and written case study, podcast, etc)?

HCI member asks: Yes, being connected (i.e., social networking) is essential; however, this does not create human connectivity, it creates connectivity via the technology.  How do you connect the people to the actual person, not just to the text message?

HCI member asks: Since learners are all ages, how do content developers for various forms of distance learning accommodate options and preferences for multiple generations?

Also, to express more thoughts on related ideas, hope you’ll visit the blogs of each of today’s presenters  Jeanne Meister  and Enzo Silva.  

One of the most exciting organizational capabilities and talent competencies is innovation.  While undoubtedly innovation inspires more innovation, what stimulates innovation at its root?   Moving past the “chicken-egg” reflection, who could argue that learning inspires new thought and hence innovation?  Learning is undergoing a revolution, drawing on new technology with a global reach.  I hope you’ll weigh in on how learning inspires innovation and share your thoughts on learning technologies and tools that further break-through ideas and related practices.  

The above cartoon implies that break-thru thinking is needed to inspire innovation :-)  What are the learning practices in your organization that inspire innovation?

Please also join our post webcast discussion…

Title: Leverage Learning Innovations for Millennial Talent Management
When: Wed, Aug 20 2008 / 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM ET
 
Presented By: Jeanne C. Meister , Founder New Learning Playbook  blog, New Learning Playbook
Allan Schweyer , Exec. Director & SVP, Research , Talent Economy blog, Human Capital Institute (HCI) 
Register:  Click Here »
 
 
Over 80 million people born between the years 1982 and 1994, referred to as the “Millennial Generation,” are entering the workforce with expectations about learning that are vastly different from traditional approaches. They have grown up on Facebook and have social networking in their DNA.
This webcast will cover innovative approaches to re-invent corporate learning capabilities. Leverage peer-to-peer learning, collaboration, and “wearable learning” to integrate learning with productivity and how work is done by the Millennial generation.

Don’t miss these webcast take aways:

1. Identify the needs for learning and career development for four generations in the workplace–with a focus on recent research about Millennials
   2. Define benefits and barriers to investing in Web 2.0 technologies for corporate learning and talent development
   3. Integrate corporate social networking into your new talent on-boarding
   4. Create online communities of practice for various job families

Multiple stakeholders want to see the impact of training and learning on business processes and results.  The success story in today’s webcast,

is enlightening because of the guideline applied by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta:  ”It’s not how good the training is, it’s how good we use the training.”    They used success case evaulation to apply their leadership training and ”learn their way forward” with “evalu-actions” planned from the very start… 

I hope you’ll join the post-webcast discussion to hear more and exchange comments below… 

Here are some related questions from HCI members: 

How do you efficiently and effectively manage follow-up logistics, such as coaching learners post-training; communicating with the learners’ managers; seeking success stories; etc. How many staff are dedicated to making this follow-up process work well? How much time is dedicated to this process?
 

What direct ways do you connect the learning with increased revenues and cost savings?

In learning organizations often a valuable question or insight relies on another question being asked.  Here are three related questions– Is your talent on fire with innovation?  What factors precipitate talent being fired up to learn?   Where (and with whom) does talent development begin?

Immediately post-hire, new talent wants to learn who the “go to” people are for answers, and how to get things done in keeping with the company culture.   Last week I was on a breakfast panel in NYC at a meeting of the Five O’Clock Club to discuss best in class onboarding with 250 people also interested in how to accelerate time-to-productivity and the related learning curve.   HCI’s webcasts on Onboarding have had over 4000 sign ups from a broad spectrum of HCI members in HR, senior leadership, OD, and hiring managers, indicating there is clearly shared responsibility for developing new talent during the onboarding process. At some point post-hire (3-6 months), after the essential ‘know how’s’ to perform on the job are under one’s belt, motivation to learn may become taken for granted.  Who continues to fan the flames of talent development?  Is talent development a shared responsibility and by whom?

Let’s begin with the learner. Looking at blog directories under the heading of “talent development” I found countless blogs devoted to self-development.  To be frank, my first impulse was to skim right past most of them, because as an OD practitioner and baby boomer, my corporate experience began with answering the question, “what competencies does the organization want to develop?”  I’m not ready to throw that baby (boomer idea) out with the bath water, but upon reflection I think it is more important than ever for organizations to attract, recruit, retain and develop talent who are passionate about self-development and to find out what they want to learn.

Sun Hydraulics is known to hire talent who are passionate about learning through collaboration, and their practice with new talent is to NOT provide job descriptions on day one because a preconceived job description might be too constraining to people’s learning.  Rather, new talent is given a time period post-hire to learn about the company and align their individual motivation to learn with company goals.  What a refreshing an avant guard concept!

Peter Senge says that a learning organization comes from people who are excited and passionate about learning and enjoy learning together in pursuit of a shared purpose. This is the fertile ground for team learning and accomplishing the shared mission.

If people are passionate about self-development, it will be much easier

1) for managers (who are increasingly becoming developers of talent) to engage in conversations about learning and find out what motivates their talent,

2) to connect their interests to learning opportunities and strategic business priorities, because

3) it is these individuals who are likely contributors to innovation as they are committed to learning and continual improvement at their very core.

I invite your posts about learning practices in your organization to develop talent, and in particular learning related to innovation…