I love this short and sweet blog post from George Couros in which he reminds us that it is human thought that conjures up innovative solutions, not any technology we can buy.But unfortunately we all too often see a shiny piece of technology and suddenly we must have one. Regardless whether it truly solves the problem(s) we have or not.
About 10-15 years ago workplace learning went thru a buying spree to purchase LMSs. They were all the rage and everyone just had to have one. There was often a “just buy one and we’ll figure out how to use it” mentality. One situation, in a Fortune 500 company, an enterprise-wide needs assessment and needs analysis that had taken 8 months to collaboratively build was set aside when the executive team pulled the LMS “plugin” one of the HRIS systems in use at the company of the shelf and decided that it was a cheap option and integrated well with one of their HRIS systems, so let’s use this. The L&D team was left with a Captain Piccard mandate to “make it so.”
Brandon Hall’s survey of Learning and Development programs indicated that 48% were planning on looking at new technologies this year. Let’s hope that most of them (fingers crossed) did the work to think through the solutions they need in detail before they publish a single RFP for all that new technology.
I mean, this technology doesn’t have artificial intelligence and we keep losing to it. What’s it going to be like in 20 years!
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