VP of Product Management at TwentyEighty and author, Treion Muller, introduces his new eBook
Who am I?
If I were to describe myself, I’d tell you that I’m a South African-American Irish German with a made-up French name who once managed an Italian Restaurant, and who is now attempting to wake up the L&D industry. Because, let’s face it, things have changed, and so must we! These days, I am seriously confused by the peculiar disparity that has evolved between how consumers of everyday information and consumers of Learning and Development (L&D) content within organizations see, access, and engage with information.
It’s as if we live two separate consumer lives.
In one life, we are active participants in the digital revolution going on around us — we find immediate answers to questions, we crowd source our problems, we make informed product choices thanks to community reviews on our smartphones, we listen to books in the seams of our days, and where if we want something, we order it, and receive it in two days.
In our second life, we are passive observers to a bygone era where if we want to find answers or access training we must attend a 2-day workshop, scheduled a month from now. In this consumer life, we are required to go through an internal portal for all tech and work related problems which may take weeks to resolve. Here, learning is defined as clicking through mind-numbing self-paced courses, or virtually attending and listening to the talking head of death, where content is chosen for us instead of tailored to us.
Can you relate?
Are you seeing this trend in your industry? It’s as if the professional learning establishment has been conditioned for so long on what learning and development should look, feel, and smell like that it has forgotten to open its eyes and see what it has become (and what it should be like). Years of designing, developing, launching, and delivering successful traditional learning solutions followed by occasional iterative improvements to programs and work sessions has placed L&D in the proverbial comfort zone – where we’ve forgotten who our learners really are and how they want to learn, from a practical standpoint.
Consider this question: Taking into account our intended audience—the solution or skill set they are seeking, their real work environment, their learning opportunities—what will they consume?
Not what do we think they should consume, but what will they do in actuality? This is the heart of the eBook – tools to help you become more aware of what consumers are actively choosing to do, so that you can determine how this applies to your specific L&D needs and learners.
It’s time for a change, and the solution starts with us becoming aware of 7 consumer realities that we can no longer afford to ignore:
- I want it now!
- I want it to the point!
- It has to look good, and work well, or I’m dumping it!
- I don’t want all this other crap!
- I want to paint the picture!
- Entertain me!
- Growing Pains (4 challenges)
To learn more about these 7 consumer behaviors and how they are impacting learning and development, download the no-cost eBook.
Download the no-cost eBook to learn more about how consumer behaviors are impacting learning & development.