Future-Focused with Christopher Lind

“People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint” – Steve Jobs The advent of presentation software brought us out of the dark ages from the classic overhead projector that had been used for decades. Anyone remember those?   However, much like other early digital transformations, it became a blessing and a curse. The ease of use built an overdependency on cut-and-paste creation with little intentionality.    Without continual improvement and progress in software design, will slide decks become the overhead projector of our era?   In this Learning Tech Talks, I'm talking with David Warren from Prezi to explore the past, the present, and the future of presentation software and how to push boundaries that balance usability with cutting-edge technology and advanced capabilities to engage learning in the #futureofwork.

Interactive content is an expectation from users.   Static video won’t cut it in the #futureoflearning. Digital learning has historically relied preponderantly on the logic of passive consumption. The key for learning leaders today is identifying interactive opportunities within the scope of industry parameters and then designing and creating them.    In this Learning Tech Talks, I'm reconnecting with John Hudson and Tiera Ellis from LUMA1 to learn more about their journey with interactive content and how it has influenced their drive to push learning further and faster to help organizations hone their learning strategies and stay on pace in the #futureofwork.

Recommendations are everything.    Good or bad, recommendations fuel the discovery of new ideas,  compound preexisting knowledge, or challenge pre-existing assumptions. Stop and think about your life and how many things have come based on a  recommendation.  When it comes to learning, recommendations are key to building a sustainable learning culture.    With content on the brink of oversaturation, how do we scale recommendations on a personalized level that is effective and transformative to a work culture?   In this Learning Tech Talks, I'm teaming up with up with Phil Purver and Jari Järvelä from Valamis to tackle what a learning ecosystem looks like for the everyday learner and what tools learning leaders can utilize for data-driven learning to recommend success for everyone.

“How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's  June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so  soon?” ~Dr. Suess The conference season is here. The holiday season will be here before you know it. Before you know it, we’ll be stepping into 2023. In our industry, we talk about not being  order takers, but that requires a clear plan before the proverbial  “stuff” hits the fan. There’s no time like the present to wrap our heads around all the lessons we’ve learned over the past few years. Add to that, the technical landscape, while familiar, looks very different than it did even six months ago. In this Learning Tech Talks,  I’ll be flying solo to share reflections, insights, and perspectives while answering questions about the current landscape and what it means for us as developers of talent. At a time when the business, people, and technology lens is all directly focused on the work we do, there’s no better time to capitalize on the opportunity to be a strategic voice at the table.

How do you tell a story? Some of my most formative learning experiences have come from someone else’s story. A story is nothing more than an account of a real person with a real experience. How a story is perceived is rather subjective. Everything from the medium  that a story is shared to the language used to detail an account can influence a learner's understanding of the moral. How do we, as learning leaders, ensure that our stories are shared with consistent understanding? On tomorrow’s Learning Tech Talks, I’m having another conversation with Carl Hodler from StoryTagger to check in on some of the newest features of the platform and explore the insights that can be observed as L&D continues to see a growing trend of user-generated micro-content and what can be expected as the medium continues to progress in ways that have yet to be discovered. 

Does anyone ever wish that they could create change magically? It sure would be a lot easier to put on a sorcerer’s hat to create change and influence with the flick of the wrist and have immediate results. However, if the sorcerer’s apprentice taught us anything, it’s that effective change doesn’t magically happen. Dreams of grandeur can influence our ability to make change a reality. Change happens with wisdom, strategy, and methodical insights. Change takes more than a flick of the wrist. In this Learning Tech Talks, I'm talking with Larry Mohl from Rali about how to effectively create change with technology that is available to leaders and what sort of keys it takes to drive the engine to a common goal throughout an organization.

Does the employee experience matter in 2022? I assumed it has always mattered and will indefinitely! Different organizations value and prioritize the employee experience differently.  The key takeaway, however, is organizations that excel at it get the talent, retain the talent, and continue to have a strategic competitive advantage in the market. While hybrid work has changed what this looks like, and many have struggled to find the right formula, does it really matter?   In this Learning Tech Talks, I'm catching up with Nicky Hoyland from Huler to dissect the definition of employee experience and talk about the role EXPs have in the #futureofwork.  We'll also explore some of the stats and numbers that help streamline workflows and engage teams in their ultimate effort to make work human again.

What makes a good leadership cohort? Do I have any cohort strategists out there? I  imagine there are a lot of valid arguments for what makes a good cohort, but I think a better question to ask is, what would make a bad leadership cohort? Simply grouping individuals together for peer-to-peer discussion is not enough to produce engaging, effective,  and long-lasting outcomes. Strategy and methodology are how we assemble strong cohorts and build better leaders.   In this Learning Tech Talks, I'm sitting around a virtual campfire with my friend Megan Galloway from Campfire to dive into how best to assemble effective leadership cohorts and how to continually build strength in leadership with an authentic and relevant experience that gives everyone a voice.

Innovation is a process.    Innovation is also something that many fear more often than they’d like to admit. This can sometimes hinder our ability to accept change and embrace a new generation that looks different than our own. Remember, not all of our predecessors embraced the change that we brought with us. Use  Esports as a modern-day case. Organizations that aren’t quick to embrace change often fall behind while the winds of change blow past them.    In this Learning Tech Talks, I bring back Michael Ioffe from Arist to talk about the emerging trends coming out of forward-thinking LMS  platforms that embrace tech that resonates differently with a new generation of learners and how organizations are finding success in ways previously unthinkable.

How often are privacy, security, customization, and configuration a part of the conversation on your learner's journey?   Looking back at the past few years at some of the large-scale misuses of personal data collection, I can’t help but include security and data collection in my conversations with enterprise vendors more frequently. We all love AI. AI needs data to effectively do its job. The more a  learning system needs, the clearer data privacy and security objectives need to be. It’s not something that has always been in the front of my brain, but I suspect it’s a conversation here to stay in the #futureofwork.   In this Learning Tech Talks, I’m joined by Rob Porter from CoSo Cloud, LLC to continue the conversation about security in 2022 concerning cloud-based learning solutions and what questions learning leaders should be having with vendors with the increasing importance for organizations to secure and protect sensitive data for their learners.