#LT13UK Gerd Leonhard on information, technology, learning and change...

  I’m still having a rubbish start to the year for blogging but with the start of the conference season I should be back to normal productivity again soon.

This week it’s been my first conference this year (other than crashing the HR Directors Business Summit hashtag last week).  This is Learning Technologies which I manage to attend in one role or another most years - last year I was a speaker and this year I’ve been on the blog / tweet-squad for the second day of the conference.  That’s good actually - it means I’ve got no choice but to do some blogging - at least, that is, if I want to be invited back again next year (and after walking out of one of my nominated sessions probably not even then).

 

We started the morning with conference chairman DonTaylor asking us what’s going to be new in learning technology this year.  My response to my neighbour was that that I’m not sure there was.  Sure, there’s the same - and big - changes that we focused on at HR Technology Europe (which I’ve chaired for the last couple of years) eg Thomas Otter’s nexus of cloud, social, mobile and big data.  But these are already being implemented in an increasing number of organisations.  So, is there really anything that new?

 

 

The question was taken up in today’s keynote from futurist Gerd Leonhard.  In a series of 30 second tweet-bites, Leonhard took us through the changes that are rapidly creating a Social - Local - Mobile world.  And again, none of these things was completely new - augmented reality exists now - and Google Glass - or even the virtual printing of social information on people’s contact lenses (or even ‘contact’ lenses) isn’t a complete step change from today.  But it’s still a big shift.  And put this together with all of the other ‘re-imaginings’ Leonhard took us through and you’ve definitely got a transformation of tsunamical proportions. 

 

That’s a tsunami in the use of technology and a corresponding landslide in learning.  Neo’s learning to fly a helicopter (‘can you fly that thing?’ in the Matrix) isn’t that far away.  The new environment is going to provide huge new challenges - a mindset evolution (or revolution?) - for learning practitioners, learning technologists and all learners.

But to me the biggest short-term challenge is just keeping up with the shock wave as it radiates through life and work ie for organisations and individuals to keep up with all the individual changes Leonhard took us through.

 

 

PS Next week there’ll definitely be more conference blogging as on Thursday I’ll be at HR Talks.

 

I’ll also be attending the first of two company-delivered events, the first of a series of 50th birthday sessions at Bromford Group which is on Tuesday (the second one is the second social recruiting conference provided by and held at CERN).

 

But before then, more on Learning Technologies including our response to the information tsunami (hopefully!!!!)

 

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